STILL SOME WORK TO DO:

Tories in high spirits as Labour hits bedrock: Despite failing in Manchester and Liverpool, the Tories claimed a breakthrough in the north - while Labour may have hit the bottom of the pit (Will Woodward, May 4, 2007, Guardian Unlimited)

The BBC's projected share of the vote in England puts the Conservatives on 41%, their best performance since 1992, when they last won a general election. Its 14% lead is the same as Labour had the year before its election landslide in 1997.

The Conservative party is on course to make gains of 600 seats and already has 318 in the bag. It runs more councils in north-west England than Labour (a new development) and in Yorkshire (it already did); 20 overall in the north.

It took South Ribble for the first time since 1995 with a huge 24-seat gain, Chester for the first time since 1986, with seven seats, and the East Riding of Yorkshire.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, is off to the north west today to claim that his party has broken through in the north, ending the fear that the Cameron effect cannot travel up the M1.

"Clearly we cannot be complacent about winning the next general election, but these results provide a great base on which we can continue to progress across the entire country," Francis Maude, the Tory chairman, said this morning.