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  Courtesy Independent..................
  
  We're not posh: Tories rebrand party to win friends in the North
  
  Conservatives aim to shed 'rich' image in bid to win over crucial voters outside the South East
  
  A drive to shed the Conservatives' image as the "party of the rich" will be launched by Tory MPs
  
  next week as they try to reposition the party as a champion of the low paid.
  
  The campaign will target working class and ethnic minority voters outside the Tories' South East
  
  heartlands as part of the party's effort to win crucial marginal seats in the North and Midlands
  
  . It will need to do so to win an overall majority at the 2015 election.
  
  The Tory MPs have linked up with think-tank experts to draw up ideas for the party's manifesto
  
  designed to show it is on the side of ordinary people by putting the cost of living and jobs at the
  
  top of its agenda.
  
  Proposals include softening the Tories' "harsh" and "uncaring" image in the north, by giving
  
  local authorities the power to reduce the benefit sanctions faced by the unemployed, so
  
  councils could take account of local job losses. Benefit rates would still be set nationally.
  
  Some Tory MPs are privately worried about David Cameron and George Osborne's label as
  
  "two posh boys" and rhetoric from ministers dividing people into "scroungers and strivers".
  
  However, organisers of the campaign believe the party's "branding problem" in the North is
  
  mainly a legacy from the huge job losses during the Thatcher Government.

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