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Tory MP says Tory messages work better in the North – but mixes up Blackpool and Manchester

October 5, 2012 2:52 pm

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Update: the Guardian have made the following correction:

“This article was amended on Friday 5 October 2012. The Labour party conference was in Manchester, not Blackpool as we said in the original headline. This error was made by the Guardian, not Guy Opperman and the Northerner apologises for it.”

We’re happy to amend the record and note that this error was the Guardian’s, and not Guy Opperman’s.

Remember Tory MP James Wharton, who argued that the North East doesn’t exist? Well now the other Tory MP for the North East Guy Opperman (Hexham) has written a post for the Guardian arguing that “it is the Conservatives delivering for hardworking families up here in the north”. Despite admitting “I must confess I didn’t catch much of Labour’s conference” Opperman seems quite keen to talk about it….

Despite that, Guy is someone who has spent much time on these issues, so I was willing to give him a chance. Until I realised that he has muddled up Blackpool and Manchester. The headline reads:

It’d be easier for the Tories to win in Northern cities, perhaps, if they could tell them apart…

Related posts:

  1. North-South Divide Widens – is it time for a North of England Assembly?
  2. The North is suffering – how do we release the potential of the Northern economy?
  3. Blackpool MP Joan Humble to stand down
  4. Norwich North: The results
  5. Coulson ‘listened to voicemail messages’: 8 in the morning – October 4th
  • Redshift1

    Tory minister thought Sunderland and Bolton nearby, now a Tory MP is mixing up a large northern seaside town with the north’s largest city….

    Does the map in Tory HQ just say ‘Here be Dragons’ in the north?

    • williamtheconker

      He must be using the new Apple maps!

    • Alexwilliamz

      It doesn’t go that far north. Someone pinched the blue tack from the top half for a poster for the christmas do and no one has got round to putting it back up. The current one is cut off somewhere around Lichfield.

  • Chilbaldi

    This is a complete non story of the Tories eat babies variety.

    • Brumanuensis

      But it does suggest that either it’s been re-used from a previous year or that the Tories are too lazy to check basic information.

      • Brumanuensis

        I suspected, I must confess that the Guardian might have been responsible for the mix-up, in which case let us withdraw any insinuations as to Opperman’s geography.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

    Its also nonsense. Sure, the large rural Northern seats – Hexham, Richmond, Penrith and the Border, return Tory MP’s. The Tory message goes down well there. But most of the people in the north live in the cities and their suburbs, where the Tories do very badly. They even underperform in the smaller towns, and I predict there will be a large shift of these suburban and small town seats back to Labour next time as the evidence is that the LD vote is collapsing, to our benefit. We already hold almost all the city seats.

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