DEFENDING Bury North MP Alistair Burt is enjoying himself as he desperately battles to hold his marginal seat.

Rather like Prime Minister John Major, he is fascinated by the electoral process.

And, again like his boss, the Minister for the Disabled relishes a scrap and is at his best with his back against the wall. He certainly has a real fight on his hands this time.

His traditional pitch as a Bury man and local grammar school boy representing his home town has been somewhat undermined by Labour's choice of candidate.

David Chaytor is also Bury born and bred and Bury Grammar School educated.

He is quietly confident that the national swing and his local background will allow him to succeed in the town of his birth where he twice failed in his adopted home of Calder Valley. Forced to seek another seat by an all-women short-list there, the Todmorden-based lecturer detects a real feeling of resentment against the Tories in Bury North.

Keen to exploit not just national trends but local issues such as allotment holders' worries about vandals, he is a serious and intense man who ridicules claims by Mr Burt that he is an Old Labour wolf in Blairite sheeps' clothing. On key issues such as rewriting the Labour Party's Clause Four commitment to nationalisation, he claims to have been years ahead of the party modernisers in advocating the move.

He is convinced that Mr Burt's Ministerial career under Mr Major has counted against him as voters detect ambition tempering his desire to serve the local community.

Mr Burt's role as Minister in charge of the controversial Child Support Agency - accused of hounding many absent fathers and their second families to save the Treasury cash - will also harm his vote, Mr Chaytor believes.

Mr Burt, on the other hand, accepts there may have been some damage done by his CSA responsibilities, but hopes his role as North-West Minister may redress the balance. As a noted Tory left-winger and supporter of Europe - studiously avoiding the attack on the single currency included in his Bury South colleague David Sumberg's election address - Mr Burt knows that he is a key target for the Referendum Party.

International businessman Richard Hallewell may only take a few hundred votes but in a constituency that like nearby Bolton West is one of the crucial weathervane seats Labour must win to form a government, those votes could make all the difference.

With a majority of just 4,764 unaffected by boundary changes, Mr Burt knows he must do more than point to the relative prosperity of Bury and plead "Don't let Labour blow it''.

He confidently expects and fears a further squeeze of the Liberal Democrat vote with 59-year-old local company director Neville Kenyon losing some of 1992's 5.010 vote to Labour.

But Mr Chaytor should beware of over-confidence as Mr Burt has two overriding reasons for fighting hard for victory. The first is to continue to represent his beloved home town - an honour made even more special because it involves winning a key marginal to keep the Tory flag flying in the North-West. The second is to ensure that he is there to fight tooth and nail for his brand of moderate Conservatism if the Tories lose the election and the right-wing of the party launches a coup attempt.

While Mr Burt has a fighting chance of holding on, further South in the town things look bleak for Mr Sumberg.

Despite his Euro-sceptic declaration and his feeling that there is little enthusiasm for New Labour even on the terraced streets of Radcliffe,

the posters for Labour rival Ivan Lewis are sprouting everywhere and a majority of just 788 in 1992 gives Mr Sumberg little cause for optimism.

Mr Lewis has two advantages - he is local and like Mr Sumberg he is Jewish in a seat where that can make a difference.

While there are obviously committed Labour and Tory supporters in the large Jewish community centred on Prestwich and Whitefield in the constituency, there is also a big block of uncommitted voters who have traditionally backed Mr Sumberg on grounds of culture and religion.

With Mr Lewis on the scene as the chief executive of a big Jewish charity that vote could split with disastrous results for Mr Sumberg.

Like Mr Burt he fears a further squeeze on the LIberal Democrat vote as local accountant and council group leader Victor D'Albert sees some of 1992's 5,010 poll leaks to Labour.

But he can take some heart that his Referendum Party candidate is a passionate Scottish defector from Labour.

Bryan Slater, like Mr Burt and Mr Sumberg a solicitor, will target disaffected Labour voters who like him feel betrayed by Labour on Europe. With his reassuringly Scottish accent he may pick up a few Old Labour voters who are feeling generally let down by Tony Blair's switch to the right. That could more than cancel out any older Tory defectors to Sir James Goldsmith's single-issue party.

Mr Lewis hopes to offset such problems by campaigning strongly on local issues and playing hard on his experience in working with the elderly and disabled who feel they have suffered under the Tories. Poor housing and unemployment also feature heavily on his list of causes tackled on the doorsteps.

While Mr Burt considers Bury natural Tory territory and a perfect example of Britain by every economic indicator, the signs are that the Southern half - the Radcliffe part of which seems to have been hit hardest by the last recession - is heading to Labour.

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