Top Tory admits they’ve given up on their No1 target seat

David Cameron is currently running around talking about how “pumped up” he is, and claiming that his party are still aiming for a majority. That would require the Tories to gain more than twenty seats without losing any. To this end, they’ve developed what they call a “40/40” strategy to try and defend forty seats and win forty seats.

The number one seat on their target seat list in Hampstead and Kilburn, where the Tories finished just 42 votes behind Labour in 2010.

And last night Tory Justice Secretary Chris Grayling (standing in for Grant Shapps at an event in Kilburn) admitted that Hampstead and Kilburn isn’t even a target seat anymore. When asked why there weren’t any Tory billboards in Hampstead and Kilburn this year, the Camden New Journal reports Grayling as saying:

“The billboards are in marginal seats. I can tell you about that in our 40-40 campaign, 40 seats we are seeking to gain and 40 seats we are seeking to keep hold of, of which Hendon is one, there has been a huge amount of direct marketing. Round the country, I have seen a lot of this going on. Probably more material is going out through a huge amount of direct marketing, through direct mail, Facebook and direct communications, and we are putting more material through doors than ever before.”

If they’ve given up fighting in a seat where they were only 42 votes behind – then they’re not really trying to win any new seats at all…