Conservative leader David Cameron swept into Montgomeryshire in a final bid to rally the troops on the eve of election day.

Mr Cameron’s visit to Ysgol Dafydd Llwyd in Newtown this afternoon was his last but one stop in a breathtaking 36-hour tour of Britain

Party faithful saw his stop-off in Newtown as a measure of confidence that local candidate Glyn Davies had a very real chance of ousting sitting MP, Liberal Democrat Lembit Opik.

Mr Cameron’s visit came after he skipped a planned stop in Telford because of time constraints.

In the first few minutes of his visit to the Welsh medium school, adult politics took a back seat as Mr Cameron met the school council and the five candidates the school is fielding in its own mock election tomorrow.

“Are you nervous?” he asked them but then showed a few nerves himself as he was confronted by a member of the public, John Braddick, from Bishops Castle, who demanded to know what the Tories would do for a “working class lad” like himself.

Mr Cameron pointed out that his party had changed under his leadership, but then he rushed away to a meeting in the school hall where he listened to the choir in another press and TV photo opportunity and was presented with a school photograph.

The Conservative Party leader said he had visited the school before when he had been in the area looking at law and order and spent a shift with a local police officer.

He also wished the children luck in the next Urdd Eisteddfod and in their own election.

“Good luck to all the candidates, but especially mine!” he said.

But the real political business of the day followed when he was met by a crowd of Tory supporters along with Glyn Davies at the school gates and gave them a last minute rallying speech.

“Let’s use the last few hours of this campaign well and get out and inspire people to vote for change,” he said.

He urged the crowd to imagine a country where the teacher was back in charge of the classroom and the man with a knife behind bars, the family was the centre of the community and where entrepreneurs and business flourished, the economy was back on track with jobs for all and Britain was standing up for itself in Europe.

“But we don’t have to imagine these things – we can achieve them by getting out and voting Conservative,” he said.

He claimed that by voting anything but Conservative “we will be stuck with another five years of Gordon Brown”.

He also emphasised that the claims made by Labour that the Tories would take benefits away from people “simply isn’t true”.

His final endorsement was for Glyn Davies who he said would make a splendid MP.