JOURNALISM students have interviewed voters in a marginal North-East seat on behalf of The Northern Echo.

While we do not pretend that the results are scientific, they do provide a fascinating insight into how the General Election is going down on the doorstep.

Labour has an 11 per cent lead over the Conservatives in Stockton South, but perhaps more significant is that 18.5 per cent are undecided and 14 per cent are already certain they will not vote.

This would appear to be because the campaign, certainly on a national level, has not addressed the issues that the people of Stockton put at the top of their agenda.

Nationally, the Conservatives have made all the headlines with their attacks on Labour's asylum-seekers policy, taxation plans and Europe. However, only two per cent of Stocktonians thought that Europe was the most important issue in the election, five per cent identified tax and eight per cent immigration.

Instead, the most important issues to the people in our poll concerned public services, with nearly 50 per cent putting health and education at the top.

Although our poll is not scientific - the students, from Darlington College of Technology, interviewed 210 people in Ingleby Barwick, Egglescliffe, Eaglescliffe, Yarm and Thornaby - the range of opinions canvassed appears quite representative of the way Stockton South voted in 1997, when Labour's Dari Taylor unseated the Conservative Tim Devlin.

It shows that both parties' share of the vote in our sample is falling - Labour down from 53 per cent in 1997 to 34 per cent, the Tories down from 28 per cent to 23 per cent - yet Labour still retains a significant lead. The Liberal Democrat candidate, Suzanne Fletcher, appears to be making a little headway, her party's share up from six per cent to ten per cent. The Socialist Alliance candidate, Lawrence Coombs, has yet to register.

Just under half of those who have decided that they are not going to vote blamed disillusionment with Labour for their apathy. Another significant factor was that "all the parties are the same".

Where the parties are definitely the same is on the importance they attach to Stockton South, as shown yesterday when Labour and the Conservatives had high-profile figures drumming up support.