The most interesting thing about a General Election campaign is seeing how the various political operators go about their business in the bid to win votes.

Yesterday in Bury and Bolton I witnessed two very different but, on the surface of it, two very successful approaches to campaigning.

The more understated of the two, Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth looks like a throw back to the “good old days” of the Labour Party.

He is charming without coming across as insincere or patronising and he clearly believes that the values he upheld when he joined the Labour Party as a trade unionist many moons ago are still in evidence.

Staunchly defending his corner, I think it is fair to say that the veterans he met at the Fusiliers Museum in Bury may have been impressed enough to set aside the scandal surrounding sitting Labour MP David Chaytor and his expenses to put a cross next to the name of his successor Maryam Khan on May 6.

Contrast Ainsworth’s style with that of Conservative leader David Cameron and you will find two politicians at completely different ends of the political system.

Cameron, who visited staff at the Warburton’s factory in Bolton yesterday after, was so much more polished but no less successful.

His opening shot - an admission that he had recently bought a bread maker which he had failed to master - was pretty lame but his answers on some pretty challenging subjects, the National Insurance contributions increase, university fees and the national debt, were strong and concise, even if it did feel a little manufactured.

Speaking after his Q and A with the staff, he told me that despite this election being one of a digital age, he still preferred the face-to-face contact with everyday folk, the people whose votes will count the most on polling day.

There is still 28 days of the campaign left and you can bet your last pound that he’ll be back on his mission to convince us his party has changed.