City Tory MP Stephen Mosley had a dig at his Labour rival for enlisting the backing of comedian Eddie Izzard saying his own priority was to ‘hobnob with the people of Chester rather than celebrities from London’.

Mr Mosley made the remarks while accompanying foreign secretary Philip Hammond on a tour of the Urenco enrichment plant at Capenhurst, near Chester, which supplies fuel to nuclear power stations.

Asked if he was jealous of the support Labour candidate Chris Matheson was getting from big names like Izzard and also former deputy prime minister John Prescott, the MP responded: “Every day I’m meeting hundreds of people and I think it’s probably more important that I hobnob with the people of Chester rather than hobnobbing with celebrities from London.”

The City of Chester seat

Mr Mosley had ‘not got a clue’ when asked how confident he was of being returned saying ‘I don’t think anyone knows, do they?’.

But the MP continued: “I’m getting a really really positive reaction. I think people are starting to see the benefits locally of what’s happening nationally. We’re at Urenco today. There’s £500m going into this site - that’s the conversion plant - there’s £170m on the Urenco side.

“You only have to go round the city centre and you can see the theatre being built, the library and the cinema there, rising from the ashes of the old Gateway. You can see the restaurant quarter that’s going to be opening in a few months’ time.

“You can see the investment in the walls which is only happening because of the Conservatives.

There’s a good feel about the city. Unemployment dropped like a stone.”

Foreign secretary Philip Hammond, who lived near Chester city centre in a cul-de-sac off Liverpool Road during the 1980s, was ‘fascinated’ to see the state-of-the-art nuclear enrichment centrifuges especially because of his involvement in negotiations to stop Iran developing a bomb using similar technology.

Urenco subsidiary Capenhurst Nuclear Services is also in the running to store reactor vessels from decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines which is controversial with environmentalists but would bring jobs.

Chester connections

Mr Hammond, whose previous job was defence secretary, commented: “I know this organisation is well-positioned to bid for that contract but of course I can’t speculate as to whether they’ll win the contract.”

On the election, Mr Hammond warned his government’s economic legacy would be ‘put at risk’ by a Labour government backed up the Scottish National Party.

And the foreign secretary was recently in India where he raised the case of Chester man Ray Tindall and five other Brits who have been stuck there since October 2013 after being detained when their anti-piracy vessel strayed into Indian waters.

Mr Hammond said: “We are now on a different level with this now, I think, where very senior people in India are involved in the detail.

“It is quite complex, but we’re doing everything we possibly can and feel reasonably confident. But the pace at which things happen in India is not always the pace at which one would look for them to happen.”