Taste for Tories grows in Cheshire

By Katherine Baldwin

CREWE (Reuters) - In Chatwin's bakery in the heart of the pretty market town of Nantwich, the blue ginger bread men were selling like hot cakes while the red and yellow ones were left on the shelf.

As the town voted on Thursday for a new MP, the bakery set out to test the mood using ginger bread men with coloured icing: blue for the Conservative Party, red for Labour and yellow for the Liberal Democrats.

If the views of people on the street were anything to go by, Chatwin's light-hearted political barometer could prove accurate.

Opinion polls ahead of the vote in the Cheshire constituency of Crewe and Nantwich put the Conservatives on track to overturn Labour's 7,000-vote majority and many locals said Labour, after eleven years in power, had to go.

While the election was for a single parliamentary seat, locals were aware of its significance for national politics and the next general election, due by early 2010.

"I think their time is running out," said Jonathan Eaves, 38, who runs a tour company and had always voted Labour. "I consider myself working class and I'm voting Conservative."

"This is a bit of a barometer and the politicians should be taking it very seriously," he added.

Losing what was a safe Labour seat would prove a major blow to Prime Minister Gordon Brown at a time when his leadership is under fire after disastrous results in local council elections, a botched tax reform and amid a grim economic outlook.