DAVID DAVIS last night insisted he was the man to win back the North for the Tories because voters would believe he was the "same sort of person" as them.

In an interview with The Northern Echo, the leadership hopeful said North-East voters had turned their backs on his party because they believed the Conservatives "are not like us".

The result was that the Tories won only one of 30 North-East seats at the General Election - and only 19 of 162 across the three Northern regions.

Mr Davis's comments were immediately seen as a reference to the privileged background of his main rival, David Cameron, an old Etonian and member of the so-called Notting Hill set.

In contrast, the Shadow Home Secretary came from a broken home, grew up on a South London council estate, and attended the local comprehensive school.

Speaking ahead of a visit to Bradford today, Mr Davis said: "The fact is that a lot of people who might vote Tory don't vote Tory because they think they are not like us.

"They may think we are only in it for ourselves and that we are not the same sort of people as them.

"I suspect that is an issue as much in the North, if not more in the North, as anywhere else. That's what we have got to put right."

Mr Davis is almost certain to be one of the two candidates whose names will go forward to Tory members, who will decide on the successor to Michael Howard as party leader.

The list will be whittled down from four to two next week, in successive ballots of the 198 Conservative MPs.

Mr Davis claims 67 backers - compared with Mr Cameron's 34, Ken Clarke's 23 and Liam Fox's 20 - but Mr Cameron's support has grown since last week's rapturously-received conference speech.

He hinted yesterday that he would like to see more directly-elected mayors, describing Middlesbrough mayor Ray Mallon's focus on crime as "an interesting experiment".

But he refused to be drawn on whether someone who had taken hard drugs could lead the Tory party, after the issue was put at the heart of the contest.

Mr Cameron has faced criticism for refusing to answer questions about his student days. Mr Davis said he had never taken any drugs - and smoked only one cigarette.

He also insisted he would never take elocution lessons, despite admitting he was not much of an orator following criticism of his lacklustre conference speech.