I have blogged before about how crucial it is that the Conservatives win a fair number of seats from the Liberal Democrats if David Cameron is to attain a simple majority in the Commons, let alone a robust one.
And no region has a bigger concentration of Liberal Democrat MPs than the South West, where seats held by the Lib Dems account for no fewer than 10% of the seats on the Conservative Party's national top 120 target list, which are as follows (NB some are newly created seats notionally held by the Lib Dems):
6. Cheltenham11. Somerton and Frome
29. Taunton Deane
43. Chippenham
57. Torbay
63. Cornwall North
86. Truro and Falmouth
97. Camborne and Redruth
101. Newton Abbot
102. Devon North
112. Cornwall South East
119. St Austell and Newquay
So it is good to read this piece by Michael Savage in this morning's Independent, which shows how seriously the party is taking the campaign against the Lib Dems in the region.
Of course, the most recent county council election results across Somerset, Devon and Cornwall all give cause for Conservatives to be in good heart in these counties - and Savage reports that the Conservatives "surprised themselves with the extent of their progress" at the May elections.
However, Lib Dem MPs - without the burden of being in government or anywhere near it - are able to distance themselves from policy decisions on national issues and concentrate on being glorified social workers in their constituencies.
Yet as much as anything it is the message of national change which I hope the Conservatives will be able to deploy to good effect with voters who have been backing the Lib Dems for the past decade or so (having possibly previously supported the Conservatives) but who are now desperate for a change in government.
And in delivering that message across the West Country, the party is, according to the Indy, "diligently pumping a healthy slice of Lord Ashcroft's millions into claiming the region". The Liberal Democrat MP for Taunton, Jeremy Browne, says:
"They're pouring money at it... They spend more in advertising in the local paper than I spend in campaigning in its entirety over the year."
Party chairman Eric Pickles describes the campaign in the region as "very targeted" and points out that the party has "gone out of our way to get very local candidates" and goes on to articulate the strategy, which we have learnt to know as "love-bombing":
"I'm not expecting people to become Conservatives overnight. We are saying we respect that you are lending us your vote, and we want the opportunity to earn your vote. In a time of intense national emergency of financial ruin we will be pursuing a centre-right position and we will not be ideological in our approach. We need to create a broad coalition, so we're looking very much for Liberal Democrat voters. To get them, we want to show them that they are more likely to see their concerns, such as ID cards, the environment and sustainability, achieved through a Conservative government."
He also makes a bullish prediction about how the Lib Dems will fare come the general election:
"I think that if [Nick Clegg] has a parliamentary party [numbering] in the mid-30s, he will have done really well to hold on to that," said Eric Pickles, the Tory party chairman. "Mid-30s" would mean the party had lost almost half of its 63 Commons seats.
Jonathan Isaby