Yarmouth has been billed as one of the key marginal seats at this election and Labour's Tony Wright, MP for the past 13 years, declared that after the first week of campaigning “everything is still to play for”.

Yarmouth has been billed as one of the key marginal seats at this election and Labour's Tony Wright, MP for the past 13 years, declared that after the first week of campaigning “everything is still to play for”.

He said: “On the doorstep, a lot of people have been saying quite clearly they have not made up their minds yet. They are thinking very, very carefully about what they are going to do and I think the debates on television will be quite significant.”

While he has been touched personally by the MPs' expenses row, having referred himself last month to the House of Commons standards and privileges committee to look at a �10,000 payout he received from the owners of his former London flat paid for by the taxpayer, he feels the issue is not paramount in voters' minds.

“Politicians have taken a knock and it is easy to score cheap political points, but people are more concerned by the fact that things have been put in place to ensure nothing like it will happen again,” he said.

The significance of the seat in the Conservatives' target list is shown by the fact that in the very first week of the campaign their candidate Brandon Lewis hosted a visit by shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change Greg Clark, and a visit by another big hitter, Theresa May, was scheduled for this week.

Mr Lewis said even in Labour strongholds in the borough he had been receiving an “extremely positive response”.

He said: “People generally just want change, they don't like Gordon Brown and don't feel they have had a good enough deal locally. They feel betrayed by who they voted for in 1997.”

The Lib Dem candidate Simon Partridge is hoping to bring fresh momentum to his party's previously disappointing showing in Yarmouth through his strong ties with the community, living in Catfield and having been born in Caister.