No sooner had Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the election date, than local candidates had launched their own campaigns.

Julian Sturdy, Conservative candidate for York Outer, got his drive underway in Haxby yesterday afternoon.

He was joined by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, his party’s shadow minister for community cohesion and social action.

Meanwhile, Conservative leader David Cameron was in Yorkshire last night when he visited young Conservatives, councillors and prospective Parliamentary candidates in Leeds.

Yorkshire is particularly important for the Conservative party as there are 17 seats in which they need a swing of less than ten per cent to win – 13 of them from Labour and four from the Liberal Democrats.