It conjures up a curious mix of feelings to see a list of Labour’s key targets for the 2015 election – excitement for the campaigns, despair for how close we came to winning some in 2010. Here is our path back to power laid out in 106 battleground seats, most of which would take a small swing to Labour to turn them red. But for those of us who may cast a more strategic eye on proceedings, it’s interesting to note that in six of the constituencies Labour finished third in 2010.

These seats – Watford, Argyll and Bute, Colne Valley, Bristol North West, Cambridge and Leeds North West – will put to the test the lessons learned from Progress’ Third Place First campaign, and particularly from the inaugural conference held last year.

It is a unique election with which to make serious gains with seats we finished third in at the last election. In seats such as Cambridge – where in 2010 Labour finished behind both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – there is an opportunity to stretch, and probably snap, the limits of the coalition. There is great potential for Labour Students’ priority campaign – voter registration – to play a part in Cambridge (one in four of the town is a student), though the university Labour club remains disaffiliated from the national movement.

These six seats will also test Ed Miliband’s One Nation Labour philosophy. It is becoming somewhat accepted policy of Labour party activists and strategists that to win, Labour must look to seats we haven’t won before. Argyll and Bute, for example, has switched between the Tories and Lib Dems since its creation in 1983, but with only 4,000 votes separating the incumbent Lib Dem and third-placed Labour, 2015 offers a scintillating chance to win it for the first time.

While the Third Place First campaign focuses generally on the south, these seats are scattered across the country. As Caroline Flint argued at the conference last year, ‘the rest of the country is becoming more like the south’. Private sector employment, graduate numbers increasing, service sector jobs – these factors which Flint suggests people normally associate with southern England are now vital to every part of Britain.

In the two and a half years of this government we have made brilliant gains in the south in local elections, but general elections are far different.  So Labour must treat these six seats as a blueprint for building an electoral strategy designed to win voter confidence in an unprecedented way. Those in first and second will try to pitch the seats as ‘two horse races’ but Labour candidate must speak with a voice that will cut through like a hot knife through butter and show that Labour are back on the up and looking for a shock third to first victory.

The party now knows where it will be campaigning, but party HQ now needs to look at how it will get there.

In a piece for Labour Uncut last year, Richard Angell and I suggested that the Fightback Fundraiser be implemented to raise funds, vital for seats which we know will be pumped full of Tory donor cash. The party should coordinate response teams for each of these six seats because we know they will take hard work to move Labour from third to first. Early campaigns, with effective campaign teams calling on the support of Labour affiliates and groups, should focus on getting Labour’s voice heard. We cannot afford to wait until the election has been called.

Six seats for Labour to prove itself worthy of the One Nation tag. Is the party prepared for it?

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Alex White is a member of Progress, writes for the Young Progressives column, and tweets @AlexWhiteUK

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Photo: synaesthesia