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Campaign analysis: Thursday May 5
Daniel Forman's daily diary of the election campaign.
Thursday May 5, 00:03am
"Choice" was a word that was expected to be heard a lot in this election campaign, if not quite in the same context that it has.
Six months ago Tony Blair and his team wanted to make the poll a mandate for marketising reforms of the public services that would make taxpayers into consumers and the "c" word a reality.
Gordon Brown was set to be banished from the Treasury and with him would go the brake on the more radical reforms favoured by New Labour. This would be Blair's victory and Blair's alone
In the end they have run a fairly defensive campaign, emphasising instead the choice between themselves and Michael Howard's Conservatives on the economy, typified by yesterday's final press conference attended by the whole Cabinet.
The fact that he can no longer convincingly claim that truly radical mandate is at least a defeat for Blair even if he is back in Number 10 tomorrow.
Guerrilla war
The change of tack was a response to polls showing the far higher trust ratings for Brown than Blair and the aggressive, guerrilla-style pre-campaign run by the Tories in which hits were made on Labour's record on immigration, crime and health.
However under the spotlight of the campaign itself the Conservatives were less successful at projecting a sense of what kind of party they are and where they want the country to go.
They also turned the campaign into a highly personal contest, accusing Blair of lying over tax and Iraq and thrusting Howard centre stage in the absence of colleagues defending narrow majorities.
This was designed in part to present Howard as prime ministerial but at times left him looking like a one man band.
And despite the fact that he insisted immigration was just one of his five priorities, a combination of his keenness to discuss it and the media's happiness to report it meant he also often looked like a one trick pony.
But Howard has succeeded where his three predecessors failed in bringing professional discipline and unity to the Tory ranks, which was in itself enough to rattle Labour.
Targeting
He also focussed ruthlessly on marginal seats which may yet pay dividends tonight.
The Lib Dems are past masters at targeting their resources and will expect to make more gains from the two bigger parties.
However they will also anticipate moving up in their share of the vote and jumping from third to second in several seats, positioning themselves for a bigger assault in 2009.
Charles Kennedy had a stuttering start to his campaign, blaming a lack of sleep caused by the birth of his first son for a gaffe on the detail of his local income tax plans.
But the revival of Iraq as an election issue in the past two weeks put the wind back in his sails. In a sure sign that the Lib Dems were making progress the prime minister even turned his fire on them as the contest drew to a close.
Aside from a bitter and personal battle in Bethnal Green and Bow, where George Galloway's Respect is threatening Labour's Oona King, the minor parties have not made much of a splash.
Boring
In many ways the campaign has been much as it was in 2001. Labour's "a lot done, a lot more to do" slogan could easily have been replayed.
The Conservatives have shored up their core vote and tried to make a significant dent in Blair's majority while the Lib Dems have continued a steady, if unspectacular, rise.
Some commentators have described this as boring and there has certainly been a lack of gaffes, incidents and events.
But the choice facing the electorate today is interesting. Do voters, despite no longer liking or trusting Tony Blair, still want him as prime minister?
Has Labour established itself as the party of government and laid the foundations of a "progressive consensus"? Or is this election at the very least the beginning of the end?
Are the Conservatives on the way back up or still falling? Are the Lib Dems really going to be the real opposition?
We shall find out tonight.
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