THE battle for this key marginal is an unusual contest - between Old Labour and New Tory.

Conservative candidate ROBERT WILSON is the epitome of the PR executive types flooding into his party - he is one!

But in addition, his right wing, Euro-sceptic, pro-capital punishment views identify him clearly with the new type of young Tory rising star that many see as the future of the party - despite the trouble they cause to John Major!

By contrast DAVID CRAUSBY is a very old-fashioned type of Labour candidate.

Engineering Union convenor at Beloit Walmsley on Crompton Way, Bolton, he comes straight out of Labour's history books.

He wears a nice suit and says the right things for Tony Blair's new party but there is a sense of history about his background and style.

Mr Wilson, not a man to miss a political trick, has been quick to portray him as a trade union dinosaur from the era of 1970's style industrial strife - a local issue that chimes with the national Tory pitch that Mr Blair in Downing Street is a return to the 1979 "Winter of Discontent''.

He cites Mr Crausby's participation in a 1980 strike as evidence.

The Labour candidate hits back with the fact that since he became convenor after the sit in protest, there have been no strikes and that his employers have a high regard for their top union official - a man who could be a handy contact in the corridors of power.

While some of the mud may stick, Mr Crausby can appeal to traditional Labour voters in the constituency as a traditional Labour candidate.

And his campaigning style bears out the message.

Organised and well staffed his team canvass methodically.

The candidate tends to get stuck in long debates with the doubters and sceptics - sometimes to the despair of his party managers.

But he has a high recognition factor on the doorstep both from his job and having stood before.

The fact that he lost by just 185 in 1992 also contributes to a two edged sword this time round - there is no complacency but there is a fear factor.

Mr Crausby has seen the glass vase of victory fall from his hands five years ago and is terrified that history might repeat itself in 1997.

But there are plusses such as the old lady who told him: "We always vote Labour - but isn't Peter Thurnham a nice man.''

The Thurnham factor seems something of a wild card in the election.

His agent Dorothy Fitzpatrick is sticking by the Tories despite the respect she has for her long-term boss.

Other Tories are even more loyal because of their feeling of betrayal by a highly respected and hard-working local MP.

Mr Crausby hopes that he will benefit as a second time candidate from the loss of the Tory-defector turned Liberal Democrat's personal vote of probably more than 1,000.

Liberal Democrat EDMUND CRITCHLEY also hopes to gain something from Mr Thurnham's switch but has steered clear of using him as a key campaign tool locally.

He hopes the national coverage of the former MP will help while avoiding stirring up local Tory resentment by presenting him on the doorstep.

The 65-year-old Professor of Neurology and consultant aims to make health and education key issues.

With experience of the changes in the NHS he has a credible case to make and at pension age with just one chance of making it to Westminster, the Blackburn resident cannot be accused of using the seat as a stepping stone to greater things.

Similarly BILLY KELLY - the unemployed former pitman from Farnworth standing for Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party.

Mr Kelly has no qualms about the fact that his candidature might cost New Labour the seat.

As far as he is concerned there is no point in voting for a second Conservative candidate called David Crausby.

Similarly Referendum Candidate DAVID STANIFORTH, a 61-year-old former campany manager, will not lose sleep over the fact that his votes might deprive anti-single currency Tory Mr Wilson of the seat.

The director of a PR firm and former deputy leader of Reading Council Tory group is confident that his modern style of high-profile targetted campaign can deliver him Bolton North-East with a majority of a shade more than 1,000.

His campaign team, some of it imported, is slick, fast and efficient.

Local co-ordinators identify key issues and direct the campaigning.

Groups such as pensioners, families with children who could lose out if Labour scraps the several hundred assisted places at Bolton School and Euro-sceptics are targetted and blitzed.

His handling of a Tory woman worried by cuts in the NHS is confident and probably successful.

Under pressure from a professional candidate baiter, his performance is less assured and his young agent - all slicked back hair and new Tory agression - is there to bring him back on track.

There is no doubt that Mr Wilson is a very effective and organised campaigner - in the professional political sense a street ahead of all his opponents.

His confidence contrasts radically with the worry that haunts Mr Crausby but his clearly high-opinion of his own abilities may jar with some hard-headed Bolton voters.

But his key problem is one of simple arithmetic.

He loses Mr Thurnham's personal vote, although that may fragment somehat.

But worst of all, he gains Halliwell ward from Tom Sackville's Bolton West and an estimated 4,000 plus Labour votes.

While he claims to have found secret reservoirs of unexploited Tory support amongst the terraced streets of central Bolton, the reality is that those who don't vote Labour normally vote Liberal Demcorat.

Senior Tories in the town have no doubt that because of these two factors the seat is unwinnable - as Mr Thurnham worked out before he jumped ship.

Mr Wilson is a cracking candiate with future in the Tory party - and maybe even in Bolton North-East if a Tony Blair government turns out to be a national disaster - but he is not so good that he can make up 5,000 votes and any UK-wide swing to Labour.

He will do well, his new-style campaiging techniques will get him, and possibly many other Tories, to Westminster one day but they are most unlikely to be enough to stop Mr Crausby from exorcising his 1992 electoral demons.

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