Blair and rivals turn from Iraq to fight over domestic issues
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-29 23:39

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair and his main rivals in Britain's general election next week returned to attacking each other over domestic issues after a bruising exchange on the war in Iraq.

As Blair attempted to push the conflict out of the spotlight however, a mother who lost her son in Iraq pledged to take the government to court.

The governing Labour Party, main opposition Conservatives and smaller Liberal Democrats are pulling out all the stops to woo Britain's pool of 44 million potential voters ahead of polling day on May 5.

Blair and his popular Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, unveiled a poster that signaled with arrows the way forward with Labour and way back with the Tories, declaring: "Economic stability. If you value it, vote for it".

"Today we return to the big and fundamental choice facing the country -- forward or back, the Labour government with a strong economy, economic stability, or back with a Tory government that will put that economic stability at risk," Blair told reporters on Friday.

It was up to the public to decide whether to wake up to a Labour government or a Conservative government on May 6, said Blair.

Asked if he was feeling under pressure, he replied: "No, but I do think it's important that people understand how big and fundamental the choice is."

Tory leader Michael Howard was also keen to broaden the debate after he scored a string of points against Blair over Iraq by branding the prime minister a liar for misleading the public over the war.

"We're in the last few days now of the campaign in this general election and it's time to focus on the wider choices people face in this campaign," Howard told a news conference in Cardiff.

"Conservatives are taking a stand on the issues that matter," he said.

Howard pledged to crack down on immigration -- one of the Conservative Party's main themes in the election. He also promised to unveil eight priorities for the early days of a Conservative government on Monday.

For his part, Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy lamented an absence of US-style head-to-head televised debates between party heads.

"I hope this is the last general election when we don't have all party leader debates because I think it's a very healthy thing for democracy," he told a morning news conference.

On Thursday night, the Scotsman appeared on a special BBC show with Blair and Howard, but each leader was questioned in turn.

The idea of a broadcast debate between the three had been agreed by his party and the Conservatives, Kennedy said, but blocked by Blair.

Turning to policy, Kennedy focused on the 'grey' vote, promising to provide 75-year-olds with an extra 100 pounds a month and couples with an extra 140 pounds in their state pension.

His party, which is trailing way back in third place behind the Conservatives and Labour still hopes to make big gains on election day.

Although Iraq was kept from the frontline of the election chatter Friday, a controversy over a secret piece of advice Blair received on the legality of the war dominated the agenda Thursday after it was leaked to the media.

The prime minister published the 13-page minute from Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith in a bid to lay the matter to rest, but the drama rumbled on as Rose Gentle, whose son died in the conflict, vowed to take legal action.

"My son was sent to die in a war that the attorney general viewed as illegal without a second United Nations resolution," said Gentle, who is also running in the election against Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram in his Scottish constituency of East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow.

"I will now be taking legal action against the British government for the death of my son in an illegal war," she said.

Private Gordon Gentle, 19, from Glasgow, was serving with the Royal Highland Fusiliers when he was killed in a roadside blast in Basra on June 28, 2004.

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