While Ken and Boris battling to become London mayor will attract most attention in coming weeks, the electorate has important business to attend to Up North.

Birmingham will no longer be the largest council, in terms of members, next year. Voters from Chester-le-Street to Teesdale will elect 126 members to the shadow authority of County Durham on 1 May. While the new unitary is a Labour stronghold, the party is involved in a scrap for power in the other new county unitary of Northumberland.
Further south, the birth pains of West Cheshire and Chester unitary authority and East Cheshire have been well documented. Even though the plan only scraped through the Lords last month, voters are going to the polls in double-quick time. Labour’s reorganisation is likely to deliver two Conservative-run councils.
These are Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg’s first local elections as leaders of their respective parties. A coast-to-coast battle is in prospect from Hull through Sheffield to Liverpool, between Labour and Lib Dems.
Elsewhere, should the dire opinion poll findings be wrong, Labour could look to winning back ground in places such as Carlisle, Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn and Doncaster.
For Mr Clegg, holding on to Liverpool and making a comeback in his own city of Sheffield are top priorities.
Despite having the highest number of councillors nationally since 1985, David Cameron’s vote in metropolitan areas is stuck at 27%. This may partly explain disappointing results in places such as Bolton and Bury last year. He needs to achieve a   better showing in these key parliamentary areas this time.
Finally back to the North East, where the Tories are targeting North Tyneside, which would be their first-ever met district in that region.
So Ken and Boris won’t have it all to themselves after all.