Tories on brink of grabbing key seats in region

Latest polling evidence suggests the Tories are on course to win a batch of key marginal seats from Labour as party officials in the region warned crunch battlegrounds could be decided by just a few hundred votes.

Private polling has left senior party figures confident of winning key seats Labour have held since 1997 such as Pudsey, Keighley, Calder Valley and Colne Valley.

Even previously safe Labour seats – such as Wakefield, Penistone and Stocksbridge and Morley and Outwood, the constituency being defended by Schools Secretary Ed Balls – are felt to be within their sights.

A poll of nearly 900 Yorkshire voters reveals the Tories have moved ahead of Labour for the first time during the campaign – turning a 15-point deficit from 2005 into a two-point lead.

But Labour insiders have become more upbeat as polling day nears, convinced voters are coming back them in the final hours of the campaign, while Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg gave his campaign a final push as he addressed a rally in Sheffield last night.

Last night, Mr Cameron concluded his frenetic 36-hour tour of the country – including a middle-of-the-night stop to address supermarket workers in Wakefield and a visit to meet fishermen in Grimsby – by declaring: "Let us raise our sights and imagine a better, stronger country with a Conservative government from Friday.

"We have just a few hours left but we have got to make those hours count because the worst thing we could have is another five years of Gordon Brown."

In an interview with the Yorkshire Post, which today endorses the Conservatives for the first time since 1997, Tory chairman Eric Pickles made a plea to voters disillusioned by what happened in the Thatcher era to move on and "take a chance" on the party. In an email to activists, Tory regional chairman Robert Semple said: "Many of our seats will be decided by a few hundred votes. This is why it is crucial to have one final push on Thursday to ensure that we win the seats which could decide the election outcome."

All three party leaders spent the last day of the election campaign in Yorkshire, highlighting the region's importance to the national election – already the closest for a generation.

An opinion poll for the Daily Express today puts the Conservatives on 35 per cent, Labour on 27 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on 26 per cent, with most recent polls predicting a hung parliament or slim Tory majority.

After visiting Sheffield Forgemasters steelworks late on Tuesday, Gordon Brown spent the night in Leeds and made an early morning visit to the flower market before making a speech at Bradford University.

Insisting jobs were the key issue in the election, he claimed thousands of undecided voters would determine the outcome as he said he was "fired up with new determination".

Mr Cameron ended up addressing a Bristol rally last night. "If we get to lead this country, we will take everyone with us – the elderly, the frail, the vulnerable, the poorest."

Mr Clegg returned to Sheffield, where he will vote in his Hallam constituency this morning and hopes to win the neighbouring Sheffield Central seat.