The election campaign saw its first angry confrontation yesterday when the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, was accused of failing the National Health Service by a woman whose boyfriend is suffering from cancer.
As Mr Blair arrived at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham to talk to doctors and nurses, Ms Sharon Storer walked through his security cordon and challenged him over poor facilities at the centre.
Emotional and at times shouting at Mr Blair, Ms Storer said that on Monday doctors were unable to find a bed for her boyfriend, Mr Keith Sedgwick, in the bone marrow transplant unit and told him he would have to be treated in the Accident and Emergency department.
"All the staff and the nurses and the doctors are trying to do their best but they just have not got the facilities," she told him. "There are no beds up there. They're just chock-a-block at the moment."
Mr Blair, who has been criticised for not meeting enough ordinary voters during the election campaign, looked extremely uncomfortable and at one stage offered Ms Storer the chance to discuss her problems away from the media. But she refused and said later: "All he kept saying was `they're going to do better, they are trying'. But he has been trying for years and they still haven't got it right."
Earlier, the Conservatives declared they would "go to war on crime" if elected on June 7th. The party leader, Mr William Hague, said there was a need to get common sense back into policies on law and order and he said the Tories would abolish the early release scheme for prisoners sentenced for up to four years. "We will make sure that the system is on the side of the victim, not the criminal," Mr Hague said.
In the first sign that he has begun mending relations with the Labour Party after his expulsion last year, the Mayor for London, Mr Ken Livingstone, confirmed he would campaign for Labour candidates in London.
Mr Livingstone was expelled after he stood as an Independent against the Labour candidate, Mr Frank Dobson, in last year's mayoral election, but yesterday said he was happy to work for the party. Insisting the Conservatives would be a disaster in government, he said: "Only a Labour government can provide the basis for improved public services, and only the election of a Labour government would permit the conditions for the future prosperity of the capital."