If a major surprise is to be sprung at the General Election then Shipley is surely a seat the Conservatives will have to claw back from Labour.

The constituency has been something of a barometer for the nation, with the party represented by Shipley's winning candidate also sweeping to victory in every General Election since 1979.

At the last election in 1997 rookie parliamentary candidate Chris Leslie overturned veteran Conservative MP Sir Marcus Fox's majority of more than 12,000 to claim the seat for Labour for the first time in half a century and with a majority of almost 3,000 to boot.

The sensational result saw the 24-year-old become, at the time, Britain's youngest MP and helped herald Labour's return to Government after a gap of 18 years.

This time around, Mr Leslie will be seeking to become the first Labour MP to win re-election in Shipley since Arthur Creech-Jones in 1945.

The 1997 defeat was a bitter blow for the Conservatives, whose candidate was chairman of the party's influential 1922 Committee and had held the seat since 1970.

Opinion polls put the Conservatives well behind Labour, but Tory candidate David Senior might take some comfort from the fact that four years after defeat in Shipley his party now holds more than three times as many Bradford Council seats in the constituency as Labour.

A similar climate prevailed when Sir Marcus Fox last won the seat in 1992.

Mr Leslie would argue that you cannot compare the two situations - local councillors are often elected for very different reasons to MPs and General Election turnouts normally far outstrip those for council elections.

But both candidates acknowledge that it could be a neck-and-neck race.

Shipley's political make-up at a local level will also ensure it is one to keep an eye on, not just by Labour and the Conservatives, but by the Liberal Democrats and Greens as well.

The Liberal Democrats hold all three Baildon seats on Bradford Council, while the local authority's sole Green councillor David Ford represents the Shipley West ward. So the parties' candidates, Helen Wright and Martin Love respectively, will be aiming to make a real fight of it.

All the candidates acknowledge that national issues like tax and education will play a big part in the campaign.

Bingley's long-awaited relief road and its impact on Bingley and Shipley, along with the regeneration of the Aire Valley corridor and possible development of various green field sites are likely to feature.

Policing - responsibility for Shipley and Baildon has been moved to the Keighley division - public transport and the future of former school sites made redundant under Bradford's education shake-up are expected to come under the spotlight.