Housing Minister reveals he won very tight election fight against Labour by giving tours of the Houses of Parliament

A TORY MP has told how his skills as a Parliamentary tour guide helped him win a very tight election for his seat.

Gavin Barwell managed to hold the Croydon Central constituency by just 165 votes in last year’s general election.

As the MP since 2010 he can take constituents on guided tours of parliament and speaking at the Tory Party conference he said this had a big effect on his electoral fortunes.

The Housing Minister told his audience in Birmingham half the Tory converts he had met on the campaign trail said they have been on one of his tours.

Daily Mirror reports he said: "The single thing we did that had the most effect in terms of building a personal vote was something I started years before the election, not really with any thought to having the election.

"Which is every Thursday night I give a group of 30 or 40 of my constituents a tour of the Houses of Parliament.

“An hour and a half tour, 30 to 45 minutes of questions afterwards.

"If you spend a couple of hours with someone, they really do get a feel to know what you're like.

"One of the things we found as we were canvassing is when we got voters that had switched from another party to us, about half of them would spontaneously say 'yeah I met him when he gave me a tour of the House of Commons.'

"And the conclusion we draw is that actually when people really get to know you as a person, even if they're not naturally from your party, it is very hard for them to then vote against you in an election."

In his presentation he showed how polling had showed Labour’s candidate Sarah Jones had been well ahead in the constituency.

He said most people had voted along party lines and admitted: "I think it is fair to say that if the ballot paper had said Conservative party versus Labour party we wouldn't have won the seat.

"So the personal vote was enough to get over the line."