It will take more than Tory cash-splashing to keep the red wall blue

Central government should play a small role and let spending decisions be taken locally

"Let's sort this mess of a town out," says a voter in Leigh, a former Lancashire mining and mill town on the edges of greater Manchester, writing on the Facebook wall of its first ever Conservative MP.

"Like Labour have done anything for Leigh over the last 100 years apart from grind it in to the ground," says another.