EAST Lancashire’s seven ‘crucial’ seats will be hard fought in the run up to polling day.

The area is seen as an indicator of which party will form the government.

Political reporter BILL JACOBS gets out his crystal ball to look at how the sitting MPs could could fare in May’s General Election

FORMER US President Bill Clinton’s touchstone phrase for winning elections was ‘it’s the economy, stupid’.

The question in May is whose economy?

Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne hope voters will opt for their vision of growing prosperity and ‘green shoots of recovery’ springing from the scorched earth of five years of austerity.

Rossendale and Darwen Tory MP Jake Berry and his Pendle counterpart Andrew Stephenson will do all they can to push that view and remind voters of the economic crash under Gordon Brown and Labour before the 2010 national poll.

Sitting Labour MPs Graham Jones and Lindsay Hoyle will try to erase all memories of their gloomy former Prime Minister and push the view that any economic recovery has not headed North to Hyndburn and Chorley where voters face a coalition-caused ‘cost of living crisis’.

Burnley Liberal Democrat Gordon Birtwistle, good churchgoer that he is, will be praying that his constituents forget all about national issues and his party’s alliance with the Tories and concentrate on their veteran political battler’s local commitment and achievements.

May 2015 will see the biggest single change in the political landscape of East Lancashire for 35 years, however voters cast their ballots: Jack Straw will no longer be MP for Blackburn.

Already the Tories have picked their best candidate for three decades in former police commander Bob Eastwood, who is working frantically hard to reach the parts Conservatives don’t normally reach.

Mr Straw’s successor, Blackburn with Darwen Council leader Kate Hollern, is stressing the hardship caused by government policies, the effect of Whitehall grant cuts on council services and trying to claim the credit for the new Blackburn town centre rising before voters’ eyes.

Her equivalent in Burnley, Julie Cooper, a former council leader, is ploughing the same political furrow trying to make sure credit for the borough’s economic recovery goes neither to Mr Osborne or Mr Birtwistle but to local Labour politicians.

Deprived of the perfect issues, Burnley’s casualty unit closure, and an electorate fed-up of Labour locally and nationally, the LibDem MP looks hard-pressed to keep his seat.

Mr Jones is waiting to find out his Tory opponent on Saturday, January 10 in a constituency where fickle electors have ensured it changes hands regularly.

UKIP is the potential wrecking ball for both parties in Hyndburn and Haslingden, with an unpredictable impact in an unpredictable constituency.

In Ribble Valley, as Tory MP Nigel Evans seeks to put his troubles prior to being cleared of gay sex assault charges in April behind him, Nigel Farage’s anti-Brussels crusader have their best chance of causing a polling day upset in East Lancashire.

Mr Stephenson will have regular Tory big-hitters on call for his campaign as hopes the long career in Pendle politics of his opponent, Nelson South county councillor Azhar Ali, has made too many enemies locally for him seize back the seat for Labour.

Mr Berry will also see regular reinforcements from Tory high command as he seeks to ensure another Straw - Jack’s son Will - does not replace his ex-Cabinet minister dad at Westminster.

Already the boy Straw seems to have shaken off some of the dust and debris of a famous political dad, especially in Darwen.

Between now and polling day all sorts of odd happenings will derail the well-oiled political campaign.

We can only hope for events to match John Prescott’s famous punch, John Major’s taking to his soapbox or Mr Brown branding a Labour voter a’ bigot’ on a visit to Rochdale.

Who will win their East Lancashire seats in May 7 barring electoral earthquakes?

Coun Hollern to hold Blackburn for Labour with a majority closer to 4,000 than Mr Straw’s final 9,856, while Coun Cooper forces Mr Birtwistle into retirement in his beloved Burnley.

Mr Hoyle to hold Chorley and Mr Jones Hyndburn relatively comfortably, unless leader Ed Miliband and his bruising economic chief Ed Balls really mess up.

Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans, popular despite his recent problems, to hang on in Ribble Valley with a much reduced majority ahead of UKIP and Mr Stephenson to scrape home in Pendle.

Rossendale and Darwen will be, as usual, simply too close to call.