THE election race is on. The political battle-lines have been drawn and campaigning is well under way. With radical boundary changes creating two new local constituencies, the traditional political waters have been muddied and there is everything to fight for on May 1st. The Labour stronghold, Skerton, is now in the safe Conservative seat of Morecambe and Lunesdale, and the marginal Lancaster and Wyre seat now stretches as far as Poulton near Blackpool.

Here the Citizen sets out the issues that each candidate will be bringing to your doorstep.

Lancaster and Wyre

Keith Mans (Conservative) "The election is all about maintaining the progress that has been made over the last 18 years. Which has turned this country from being the sick man on the continent to being the enterprise centre of Europe. Taking a risk with Labour could take us back to the disastrous 1970s."

Hilton Dawson (Labour) "I want to see a reduction in the size of primary school classes for the under eights, a slashing of hospital waiting lists, the introduction of a minimum wage and the implementation of a welfare to work scheme. I also want to see Nightingale Hall Farm more suitably located."

John Humberstone (Liberal Democrat) "I will put education and health at the top of my campaign. The LIberal Democrats are the radical party, we have more thoughtful and progressive policies and I will be saying to people if you like what you hear then vote for us."

Jon Barry (Green Party) "I will be standing on strong environmental policies such as diverting funds from road building into public transport, giving incentives for organic farming and scrapping the suicidal Trident missile system. I will also campaign to prevent people being forced into very low paid jobs and to end the poverty trap."

John Whittaker (UK Independence Party) "I want to see independence of the nation from the European Union. Britain's businesses are being crushed under all the EU directives and regulations and our prosperity relies on trading freely with the whole world and not just the EU."

Vivien Ivell (Referendum Party) was unavailable for comment.

Morecambe and Lunesdale

Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd (Con) "My message is vote Conservative. We have delivered prosperity, a growing economy, falling unemployment, low mortgage rates and enormous expenditure on the NHS. I am confident of victory."

Geraldine Smith (Labour) "Education and crime will be top of my agenda. I want to attract investment and fight for pensioners. The treatment of the generation that saw this country through the war is scandalous."

June Greenwell (Lib Dem) "I want to see more honest, open and competent government. We should give priority to education, the NHS, social services and the police. Government should also look at the long term, especially the environment and what's happening to the planet."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.