Senior Conservative and Labour activists in some of the most hotly contested marginal seats have voiced concerns that the “air war” being conducted by David Cameron and Ed Miliband through photo opportunities, planned policy announcements and television appearances is not cutting through with voters.

Party bosses in several of the tightest contests have revealed that some would rather senior party top brass stayed away from their doorstep campaigns. One Tory candidate told the Guardian that George Osborne would not be welcome at his campaign launch.

Another Conservative local chairman said Ukip’s Nigel Farage and the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon were communicating better than his leadership and a senior Labour activist complained that visits from the party’s senior hierarchy were a “pain in the arse” that hindered, rather than helped, the local campaign.

Activists cited their leaders’ failure to express a vision for the country in plain language and to address detailed policy issues in a way voters wanted. Their views provide growing evidence that the general election is dividing into a two-track campaign, with widening gaps in tactics, campaigning styles and, in some cases, policies advanced by the central party machines and grassroots constituency offices.

In Great Grimbsy, the former fishing powerhouse in Lincolnshire where on Wednesday Farage launched Ukip’s fisheries policy, Tory candidate Marc Jones invited long-term Cameron critic David Davis to help launch his campaign. The former Labour stronghold is now a Tory target held by just 714 votes, but the chancellor, who the national party is trying to paint as a safe handler of the economy, would not have been welcome.

Marc Jones

“[Davis] is perfect,” said Jones. “He’s the kind of person who will fit well in a Eurosceptic area that is thinking about voting Ukip. If they had said to me you can have George Osborne come down, or you can have David, no disrespect to George Osborne at all, for me the right person to have is David Davis.”

Independence is important to Jones, who is grateful for a lack of Conservative campaign headquarters (CCHQ) involvement, calculating he can do better alone.

“I would not have welcomed CCHQ dictating to me how my campaign should be run,” he said. “I need to be left to get on and do my job and get things done as I need to. A significant amount of interest from head office might not get in the way, but it would change the direction of the campaign.”

This week, Cameron hit new heights in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it campaigning by stopping in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in just nine hours on Tuesday. Voters in the Tory target marginal Southampton Itchen complained that in personalised letters sent to them by the prime minister, he misspelled it as “Itchin”.

Ed Miliband campaigns in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

“I usually vote Conservative but this makes you prick your ears up,” said Tyler Coombes, a voter. “It’s a bit embarrassing.”

But as well as being a response to fears that party leaders are seen as out of touch, local party organisers’ increasing independence is also the result of a multi-party fight.

Not far from Grimsby, in one of Labour’s tightest target marginals in the Midlands, a Labour council leader, who requested anonymity, made senior politicians’ visits sound like a chore.

“You’ve got to find them [senior politicians] something to do, you’ve got to stop doing everything else, you’ve got 35 minutes with them and then they disappear,” he said. “Parachute visits may boost the campaign team but it doesn’t have a huge impact on votes.”



Party leaders were flitting about everywhere and not spending enough time in one place, he added.

Milan Radulovic, the Labour leader of Broxtowe borough council in Nottinghamshire, where Labour is fighting to oust defence minister Anna Soubry, warned shadow ministers: “If they want to come to Broxtowe, get off your horse and do some door-knocking and canvassing, and talk to real people, find out what the real issues are.”

Nick Clegg with the Lib Dem MP for Solihull, Lorely Burt. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

Real issues means local issues, campaigners said. In Solihull, 10 miles south-east of Birmingham, a Conservative priority to win back from the Liberal Democrats’ 2010 surge, Julian Knight is fighting to overturn a 175-vote majority held by Lorely Burt.

“We’re focusing on Solihull and we haven’t focused on the national picture,” said Robert Holland, the local party chairman. “The campaign here is local services, local hospitals and local people.”

The national political debate about whether the NHS should get an extra £2bn as the Conservatives are pledging, or £8bn as the Liberal Democrats want, means little.

“Those figures have lots of noughts on but to us it’s about funding Solihull local hospital,” said Holland. “The people on the doorstep are not interested in a reorganisation in London or wherever.”

In Telford, another Conservative target, there is constant attention from CCHQ, but there is criticism, too.

“We have a minister every Tuesday,” said David Wright, chairman of the Telford Conservative Association. Theresa May, Justine Greening, Owen Paterson and Boris Johnson are among the senior Tories to pass through. Here, the campaign largely overlaps with central office’s priorities on the NHS and immigration and, Wright said, the ministerial visits have helped. But he voiced frustration at Osborne’s failure to communicate properly with voters on the economy.

George Osborne putting together a Henry vacuum in Exeter. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

“The chancellor says the deficit is down by 50%,” said Wright. “I wish he would come out and say to us the amount of interest we’ve saved is, say, £1bn and this is what we’ve done with it. Keep it very simple for the people of the land. He says its 2% of GDP, but who cares? I’d rather hear ... we’ve bought 10 ambulances. Keep it simple. But they don’t do that. They always want to speak in political jargon. They understand it but us guys on the ground don’t understand it so much.”

Farage is a better communicator, he admitted: “He tells it as it is and that’s what people want.”

The tightest battle in the election is for the votes of the haves and have nots of Hampstead and Kilburn in north-west London. In a seat held by Labour by just 42 votes, the Tory candidate Simon Marcus is displaying profound independence from the leadership.

“He will look more to the constituency than the whips office,” the constituency deputy chairman, Oliver Cooper said. That means he has been campaigning against three major Tory policies – the replacement of the Trident nuclear deterrent, the bedroom tax and the high-speed rail link, HS2, from London to Birmingham.

London mayor Boris Johnson canvassing on Kilburn High Road Photograph: Hannah McKay/i-Images

“All politics is local,” said Cooper. “[The local campaign] cuts away the personality politics, all the gossip and rumours, and is just about how you can help people on the ground. We have been on the right side of issues, whether opposing the construction of skyscrapers, basements, council tax increases, the mansion tax – all these are local issues we have delivered on without it being a slanging match between David Cameron and Ed Miliband.”

Is the local campaign more exciting than the national one? “Possibly so,” concluded Cooper. “I am not going to argue with that.”