DAVID CAMERON and David Davis embark on three weeks of frantic campaigning in the Conservative heartlands today to win the backing of the party’s 250,000 eligible voters.

All members should have received their ballot papers by November 8, and experience suggests that more than half will complete them and send them back by return post. This means that, although the ballot does not actually close until December 5, the election could be won or lost long before then.

The gruelling round of hustings, coffee mornings, lunches and dinners starts today. Mr Cameron will visit Brent, which is emblematic of the inner-city areas with which the party must reconnect. Mr Davis will travel to his former university, Warwick, to meet students.

These carefully chosen locations are part of an organised “parallel campaign” that combines trips to marginal seats and the inner cities with scores of visits to the real battleground, London and the Home Counties.

The most intense campaigning takes place where party members are most densely populated. The commuter towns of Maidenhead, Basingstoke and Aylesbury, as well as the capital, will play host to repeated visits by the two finalists.

The rules require the candidates to attend up to 11 hustings, and these will be combined with intense campaigning on the margins. The candidates are required to design a leaflet to be sent with the ballot paper to all 250,000 eligible members. They can spend up to £100,000 on their campaigns and must also fund the ballot and hustings at a cost of £35,000 each.

For Mr Davis, the next three weeks are a chance for a fight- back after two dreadful weeks in which his parliamentary support ebbbed away. He will seek to shine a harsh light on Mr Cameron, who has been criticised for being “policy lite” and too posh to connect with suburban Britain.

To magnify what he sees as his rival’s weakness and his own strengths, Mr Davis will make his ability to connect with inner cities and northern England the cornerstone of his campaign. He will use every opportunity to say that only he has the background, personality and policies to win back these crucial areas that the Tories vacated in 1997.

He also plans some heavily detailed policies. Health and education will feature particularly prominently to show how he precisely could appeal to aspirational suburbanites.

Mr Cameron has made few policy commitments but he has voiced his support for the restoration of the married couples’ tax allowance. Mr Davis, himself the son of a single mother, will portray this as old fashioned and simplistic, and instead announce his intention to set up a commission on family life to recommend policies to support all types of families, not just married couples.

Other policies will focus on reviving inner city life, with plans for better designed estates and heavy regeneration.

He will play up his experience in the Commons, and what he believes is a broader base of support than Mr Cameron’s. His supporters believe there is everything to play for. “This is a marathon, not a sprint. We have had a bad few weeks but we have come through and I think party members will respect us for that.”

In contrast, Mr Cameron will defy critics who say he is all style and no substance by refusing to get drawn into making detailed policy pledges. He believes it foolish to be drawn into making pledges on public service and tax so far ahead of a general election and will stick to setting out his philosophy. Supporters say that his youth speaks for itself and he does not need to dwell on the “dynamic new face” argument.

But they say that he will seek to reassure members that he will draw on all the services of more experienced colleagues.

However, his decision to make his first interview on the stump a webcast suggests that he will be seeking to underline his youth at every opportunity.

THE CANDIDATES

DAVID CAMERON

More freedom for schools, but emphasis on rigorous examination regime, literacy and numeracy

DAVID DAVIS

Proposes school vouchers for inner-city areas to give lower-income families more choice and top schools more incentives to take poorer pupils

THE PARTY SAYS

Laura Coomber, 36, chairwoman of Milton Keynes North East Conservative Association

“Although nobody really knows David Cameron, I think he’s a fresher face. I think Cameron will come across a lot better than someone like David Davis. I just think David Cameron is the right man on the doorstep to promote the Conservative message. He will get the housewives’ vote more than Davis will.”

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