Leaders: Poll fight ahead of May 5

Campaigning continues around the country this weekend as Tony Blair, Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy gear up for a renewed poll push.

On Saturday the prime minister kept up the momentum when he launched Labour's latest poster campaign.

Issuing a rallying cry he urged Labour voters to turn out and support the party in the May 5 general election.

Surrounded by party supporters, the prime minister unveiled posters detailing schools and hospitals which read: "If you value it, vote for it."

Speaking to journalists later Blair dismissed the Conservatives' manifesto as "threadbare and contradictory". He said the Liberal Democrats plans "simply don't add up".

Warning that the election would be "decided by a small number of votes in key marginal constituencies", Blair called on voters to trust his government and turn out on election day.

Howard

Howard meanwhile was set to use a speech to party members on Saturday to issue his own rallying cry.

But the Conservative leader goes into the final full week of campaigning facing fresh questions about his immigrations plans.

Quizzed by the BBC's Jeremy Paxman last night, the Tory leader sidestepped questions on how his party would go about establishing overseas asylum processing centres.

He also failed to say at what number the Conservatives would cap the number of legal migrants who are allowed to live and work in the UK.

"We haven't got a number yet...We will ask parliament every year to set a limit on the number of people who can come into this country," he said.

"Parliament will set the limit after there has been consultation.

"There would have to be consultation with the CBI and other employers' organisations so that we can get the right number of people coming into this country with skills, which we need, as economic migrants."

Fears

Labour however, will claim this weekend that the Conservatives are seeking to play on people's fears as they make their bid for government.

Speaking in Dover on Friday, the prime minister mounted a scathing attack on the Conservatives' plans.

"Their campaign is based on the statement that it isn't racist to talk about immigration. I know of no senior politician who has ever said it was. So why do they put it like that?"

"It is an attempt deliberately to exploit people's fears, to suggest that for reasons of political correctness, those in power don't dare deal with the issue.

"So that the public is left with the impression that they are being silenced in their concerns, that we are blindly ignoring them or telling them that to raise the issue is racist, when actually the opposite is true."

Rural issues

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat leader is spending Saturday in his constituency where he will pledge to "make a real difference to people in rural areas".

"Liberal Democrats understand the issues that make a real difference to people in rural areas," Kennedy will say during a visit to a local farm.

"Agriculture is in a state of continuing crisis, the transport system is inadequate, local schools are closing down and public services generally are stretched."