ABSTRACT
During the 1990s the approach taken by the major British parties to constituency campaigning was transformed. 1 Fuelled by increasing professionalism in relation to campaigning in general and encouraged by changing academic assessments of the effectiveness of constituency-level campaigning, the parties began to make greater efforts to plan and manage local campaigns from the centre. In doing so, they sought to concentrate campaign resources and effort on what are variously called ‘target,’ ‘key’, ‘criticar’ or ‘battleground’ seats – those which the party holds but might lose and those where it has a genuine chance of ousting an opponent. There was nothing new about attempting to target resources in this way – party organisers have long been aware that most constituencies are usually safe or hopeless for them and that winning marginal seats is crucial to their chances of winning elections – but, for a variety of reasons, it was never very successful until the 1990s. 2 Until then, constituency campaigns were, on the whole, just that – campaigns organised and run by constituency parties or associations – and although national party headquarters provided some training, help and guidance, their attempts to focus resources where they would have greatest impact were not very effective. 3
