Blair headed for victory despite Iraq misgivings

Andrew Gray

After frantic final days of campaigning across the country in the handful of swing constituencies that could determine today's election, Mr Blair ended his travels at his home seat of Sedgefield in northern England.

"Of course there has been disagreement about Iraq," the prime minister said.

"(But) who do people trust with the economy, with the investment in our public services, with the interests of the country? I think we can make a pretty good case of it."

Mr Blair hopes Britain's robust economy, which has outperformed its continental neighbours during the global downturn of recent years, will be his trump card.

But voters, including many in his own Labour Party, remain deeply

uncomfortable with his backing of US President George W Bush in Iraq.

Michael Howard, leader of the main Conservative opposition, accused Mr Blair of

lying over the legality of the war and over intelligence on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

While setting his own furious pace on the campaign trail, Mr Howard said Mr Blair had deceived Britons too often.

"If you look back at the promises that were made and broken, people have to ask themselves how they can believe the promises that are being made to them by Mr Blair at this election," he said.

In Sedgefield, an area of old mining towns and picturesque villages where Mr Blair won a huge majority of almost 18,000 in 2001, the father of a soldier killed in Iraq is standing against Blair as an independent and seeking to garner a protest vote.

As he knocked on doors, an upbeat Reg Keys said voters were upset over Iraq and responsive to his anti-Blair message.

"What we are seeing here are cracks in the foundation of the Labour empire," he said. "People want something different."

Despite a week of attacks on his integrity, polls put Mr Blair on course for victory, albeit with a likely reduction in his massive 161-seat parliamentary majority.

One eve-of-polling-day poll predicted Labour could be heading for another three-figure majority.

The ICM poll for The Guardian put Labour on 38%, six points ahead of the Conservatives on 32% slightly lower than their share of the popular vote in 2001. The Liberal Democrats were on 22%.

The Guardian said that if these figures were translated into a uniform swing across the country they would give Labour a majority of 130.

More than one in four 27% said they still had not made up their minds how to vote an unusually high figure so close to polling day.

But Mr Blair was taking nothing for granted, warning repeatedly that apathy among Labour backers could sink him.

"Whatever the opinion polls say, in the key seats a few hundred votes or a few thousand votes can determine it either way," he said.

When Mr Blair stormed to power in 1997, national turnout was 71%, but that slumped to 59% in 2001 the lowest level since World War I.

The further it falls, the worse it will be for Labour, whose voters are less likely to turn out, according to the polls. That variable leaves the size of Mr Blair's victory very much in doubt.