Michael Howard has succeeded in associating the Tories with "anti-politics" populism, a leading Labour thinker said yesterday.

Tom Bentley, who runs the think-tank Demos, said that for the first time since 1997 the Conservative Party was successfully presenting itself as more in touch with grassroots popular opinion than Labour.

"Suddenly Labour has to contend with the possibility that it might not be in contact enough with voters, and that another party, and another leader, can do it better," said Bentley, a former special adviser to David Blunkett.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair admitted that any vindication he expects to receive over the Iraq war won't occur before the election.

Refusing to apologise for the war, the prime minister told an all women audience on the Jonathan Dimbleby programme: "In time to come, maybe not quickly enough for any general election, people will come to see it was the right decision."

Comparing 1997 with 2005, he insisted: "If you do a balance sheet it is not all bad. Some things I hope are better. I think the economy is stronger. There are things like unemployment that we don't talk about any more."