Stiff test for New Labour in northern heartland

Jonathan Foster reports from Sheffield, where the Lib Dems scent blood but could stay hungry

The host of golden posters in windows on the Flower estate are a joy for Liberal Democrats to behold as they seek to transplant Labour from the great industrial cities of northern England.

These streets of inter-war council semis in Brightside are the heart of municipal socialism and the soul of Labour in Sheffield, for years the party's safest big city. It was the Brightside party which ousted a right-wing MP and began the radical movement for mandatory reselection.

It was Brightside that gave David Blunkett one of the largest Commons majorities, and it was in Brightside ward that the Liberal Democrats last year recorded their biggest swing, 18 per cent from Labour.

Tomorrow, the one Liberal Democrat councillor in Brightside is up for re-election and, between Primrose Drive and Daffodil Road, the substance of Paddy Ashdown's claims for his party's prospects north of the Trent will be tested.

To have displaced unpopular Conservatives while winning seats from impotent, cash-strapped Labour administrations was no mean achievement. But the Liberal Democrats have still to prove that their success is more than the brilliant foliage of protest.

There are fewer of their posters around Brightside than last year, and increasing evidence that Labour's problems have at least stopped getting worse.

Like many "Old Labour" parties, Sheffield sought desperately during the 1980s to mitigate the effects of deindustrialisation under a hostile Thatcher government. It built peerless sports facilities and a new tram system. However plausible Labour's excuses, many voters believed they had been burdened with useless debt and disruption.

Services were meanwhile cut dramatically after the council twice gambled its budgeting on Labour general election victories, and the Liberal Democratsgained support.

Now the trams are running. The huge indoor arenas hum with big concerts and triumphant sports teams. Perhaps the council has at last got a grip; withering recent criticism of Sheffield by Mr Ashdown was widely interpreted as an insult.

On the Flower estate, few people can afford a tram ride, let alone tickets for Pavorotti or the Steelers. Brightside is one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in Britain. If Labour nationally and locally has improved its standing, has it left its heart behind in the poorest parts of town?

The trams are running, they say on Daffodil Road, but the housing repairs service is not. "It's easier to get hold of heroin than the works department," one woman said.

Across the city in Walkley, a switchback ward of terrace houses, the Liberal Democrat councillor is praised widely as a great unblocker of drains, a prompt fixer of street lights.

Joe Crossley, a 30-year-old socialist, will vote Liberal Democrat. "Labour under Tony Blair is becoming a watered down Tory party," he said. "They've turned away from Clause IV and are watering down the trade union role. They are prepared to drop us in order to win support down south."

Walkley, where Roy Hattersley imbibed socialism with his chapel communion wine, is symptomatic of a reverse Blair effect, according to Peter Moore, the Liberal Democrat leader.

"The Tory vote has collapsed absolutely, but we have also found Labour voters disillusioned with Blair. Many of Labour's poorest supporters are the ones most affected by the council's incompetence," Mr Moore said.

The Liberal Democrats anticipate gaining up to 11 seats, a 50 per cent improvement which would take them to within 17 seats of Labour. Peter Price, Labour's deputy leader, suspects they have risen as high as the thermal of protest will take them.

"There has been a general rundown on the pre-war housing estates - they play hell about repairs," Mr Price said.

But Labour's canvassing, more resolute than for several years, was dispelling the "misunderstandings" about who was ultimately responsible and who would ultimately put things right.

And the positive Blair effect is felt in Sheffield as well. In the Central constituency last month, party officials reported nine new members in the four poorest wards; the two better off wards recruited 31 new members, no fewer than 23 of them in one of the Liberal Democrat target seats.

The daffodil effect may be giving way to the rose.