British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair wants a large turnout in Thursday's general election because he wants a strong second term mandate, aides have said.
All opinion polls show Mr Blair should win by a landslide but the opposition Conservatives have launched a late appeal to voters to "burst his bubble", warning that it would be bad for democracy if he was given another huge parliamentary majority like the one he swept to power with in 1997.
Mr Blair is making no attempt to disguise his concern that the new Conservative tactic, drummed up by former prime minister Lady Thatcher and rammed home by opposition leader Mr William Hague, could damage his chances of a big win.
He has also had to contend with some surveys suggesting large numbers of voters are either disillusioned with politics as a whole or with what they see as his Labour government's failure to deliver on first term promises. Turnout could be the lowest at a general election since World War One, surveys show.
Blair, tipped by many pollsters to win a massive majority of around 200 seats in the 659-member House of Commons, described the new Conservative ploy as a "desperate last throw of the dice".
The Conservatives launched a poster campaign featuring a grinning Mr Blair inside a bubble about to be burst by a pin and the slogan: "Go on, burst his bubble."
Many commentators saw it as an attempt to call into play the so-called "Queensland effect" when similar tactics were used in elections in the Australian state in 1995, where the opposition won against the odds after urging voters not to give the government a towering majority.