AS the General Election proper gets underway, for most people in our region the battleground is elsewhere.

Because of entrenched political loyalties and the crudeness of our electoral system, there are only two seats which are generally agreed to be truly marginal.

Depending on your point of view about politics, the voters of Stockton South and Durham City are the lucky ones in that their vote will have consequences for who wins nationally.

In almost every other seat in County Durham and North Yorkshire, the winner is already known. There may be an upset elsewhere, conceivably in Darlington and the strangely titled York Outer – a new seat – but by definition such an outcome will be unusual, and rare.

So, four weeks before the poll, we can welcome back to the new Parliament William Hague and Anne McIntosh in North Yorkshire and Phil Wilson and Helen Goodman in County Durham. The same applies to Sir Stuart Bell in Middlesbrough and Vera Baird in Redcar.

The smart money is split between a small Conservative majority and a hung Parliament. While the latter is dreaded in some quarters, it could lead to some limited reform of the electoral system. While the Conservatives’ commitment to electoral reform does not stretch to changing the voting system, it is possible that the first-past-the-post system which the party favours because of its decisiveness may, ironically, prove to be anything but decisive come May 6.