Howard attacks Blair 'lies' in British election race

Conservative leader Michael Howard made his most vicious attack yet on Tony Blair's integrity today as opinion polls showed he…

Conservative leader Michael Howard made his most vicious attack yet on Tony Blair's integrity today as opinion polls showed he is floundering in his bid to oust the British prime minister in the May 5th election.

As the three main parties used World Poverty Day to flag up their humanitarian credentials, Mr Howard accused Mr Blair of being a liar. "He has told lies to win elections.

On the one thing on which he has taken a stand in the eight years he has been prime minister, which is taking us to war, he didn't even tell the truth on that," Howard told BBC Television.

With his Conservative Party failing to make a breakthrough in polls on key election issues like health and education, Mr Howard wants to turn the vote into a referendum on Mr Blair.

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The election was the public's last chance to "make a judgement on Mr Blair's character," he said, adding the prime minister had made many "broken promises" including on tax. The latest opinion polls put Mr Blair's Labour Party on track for a third term in office.

A survey for the Sunday Times newspaper by YouGov predicted Labour would take 37 per cent of the vote, the opposition Conservatives 33 per cent and the Liberal Democrats 23 per cent.

A separate poll by ICM in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper put Labour on 39 percent, the Conservatives on 33 and the Liberal Democrats on 21.

The Conservatives are stressing Iraq is an issue of trust in Mr Blair since their support for the war makes it difficult for them to capitalise on Blair's woes over the conflict.

The Liberal Democrats, the third largest party, look set to gain most votes on Iraq after consistently opposing the war.

To back up his attack, Mr Howard seized on a report in The Mail on Sunday newspaper that claimed it had new information that proved Mr Blair had misled the country over the legal advice he was given in the run-up to the 2003 conflict.

It said the government's top lawyer, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, had spelled out in March 2003 six reasons why Blair might be in breach of international law if he went to war without a second United Nations resolution.

The government, which declines to disclose the full legal advice on the war, stood by its opinion that the conflict was in line with international law. "Our view is the war was legal then, it remains legal now, there is no issue about that for this government," Baroness Amos, Labour's leader in the House of Lords, told Sky News.