Why the Grimsby area is the focus of the general election campaign today as Sunak and Starmer head to town

It may be a fairly quiet pocket of northern England but the Grimsby area will be the focus of national attention today with the arrival of the two men who are vying to be Prime Minister after the election on July 4.

With a media circus heading to North East Lincolnshire, many may be wondering just why so much attention is being lavished on an area which equally as many may feel is largely forgotten about most of time.

There are few places that will see campaign visits from Conservative leader and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer on the same day but Grimsby will get just that today. The obvious reason for it, of course, is that broadcaster Sky News has selected the town to host its special live general election leaders' event The Battle For Number 10, which will be aired from 7pm this evening.

READ MORE:

• Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer visit the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area

• Full list of candidates in each northern Lincolnshire constituency

But the reason Sky News is focusing on our area reveals why so much attention is being paid to it. While some parts of the country usually have what may be called 'safe seats', where parties of certain persuasions can just about rely on a constant thread of support from local voters regardless of the political weather at the time, the people of North East Lincolnshire moved away from such loyalty at the last election having threatened to do so before.

The Conservatives famously took the now defunct Great Grimsby seat for the first time in decades in the 2019 general election, amassing nearly 55 per cent of the vote. It was a huge shift change as Labour had held the seat continuously through various governments led by everyone from Clement Attlee and Sir Winston Churchill to David Cameron and Theresa May with the last Tory MP before Lia Nici being Walter Womersley who lost the constituency to Labour's Kenneth Younger in 1945.

However, though Labour comfortably won on many occasions, that hasn't always been the case. In the 2010 general election, for instance, Austin Mitchell held onto the seat for the party by fewer than 700 votes as Labour left government after 13 years. As such, nothing can be predicted.

These days, as ever, there are many issues facing voters in North East Lincolnshire as the region continues to battle to turn the tide of decline that seemingly set in following the erosion of the fishing industry around half a century ago. As such, it could be argued many in the region will feel let down by governments both red and blue so will not blindly vote for either out of mere loyalty.

With Cleethorpes now merged into the Grimsby constituency, which has voted for whichever party ends up winning general elections since that seat was created in 1997, the area will no doubt be seen as a bellweather for the whole nation - reflective of the mood of the public and how it wants to see the country run over the next few years. Will it trust the Conservatives to carry on for another five years or return Labour to power for the first time in a decade and a half? Or will more voters put their faith in other parties such as Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats or the Greens, perhaps even challenging the 'big two' for victory?

With the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic still being felt, ongoing cost of living issues and much more, the challenges of the past five years may be easing but they have not gone away. Voters will want to know who can steady the ship and move the country on.

The eyes of the nation will be on Grimsby today where the people are seen as those who are representative of the unheard majority that will decide which party takes control of our country from July 5.