Letwin to focus on saving seat

Oliver Letwin was today racing back to his constituency to step up efforts to save his job.

The shadow chancellor is scaling down his role in the Tories' national campaign to focus on holding his own seat.

Juggling his commitments as shadow chancellor and would-be West Dorset MP - defending a majority of 1,414 - involves gruelling daily round trips to London.

Today bookmakers Skybet made the Lib-Dems' Justine McGuinness 8-11 favourite to win the seat.

Mr Letwin looked exhausted as he appeared with Michael Howard to unveil what is expected to be the last major Tory tax announcement before polling day: the pledge to raise the stamp-duty threshold to ?250,000.

Other leading Tories whose seats are at risk are David Davis, Theresa May and Tim Collins.