With the launch yesterday of the Labour Party's manifesto the UK general election is pitched well into its three-week campaign. The prime minister, Mr Tony Blair, has promised a 10 year reformist agenda, including radical measures to improve education and healthcare, a reformed public service and long term economic stability guaranteed by faster productivity growth and potential membership of the euro. "A strong economy, a strong society and a strong Britain" is how he summarised his party's objectives. Audaciously, this assumes a third full Labour term in office, a prospect that will very much depend on how effectively these promises are delivered upon should he secure a second full term in office.
Labour's commanding lead in the opinion polls has so far rendered the campaign sufficiently predictable to put some people off voting. That is an abiding fear among Labour's leadership, which Mr Blair was yesterday at pains to emphasise. The manifesto makes substantial commitments to improve the living standards of traditional Labour voters as well as the middle classes to whom Mr Blair has also looked for support. Its commitments not to raise the higher or lower rates of income tax are calculated to maintain that appeal. So is the commitment to use new methods of private-public partnership to deliver on these reforms in the health and education services.
Labour's policies contrast with the Conservatives' promise to cut income taxes and the Liberal Democrats' plans to raise them to pay for improved services. The Conservatives have so far signally failed to shift Labour's commanding lead either by the right-wing policies they offer or the character of Mr William Hague's leadership, which most voters do not consider a credible alternative to Mr Blair. The Liberal Democrats criticise Labour's cautious approach on taxation, but seem likely to maintain their tactical co-operation with that party in the expectation of closer relations during a second Labour term.
Yesterday Mr Blair said he wants Britain to be "a key and leading player in Europe" and acknowledged that cannot be achieved without membership of the euro. He nevertheless stuck to the government's line that this will require a positive assessment of the five economic tests his government has laid down for the common currency. It is a good thing he has brought the issue into the campaign, since the credibility of his undertaking to hold and win a referendum on euro membership if he is re-elected would be much reduced should he have avoided it.
A measure of the changes brought about by Mr Blair's government over the last four years is how devolution has transformed the election campaigning in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, as has been made clear in a revealing series of interviews with leaders there in this newspaper during the week. The new devolved administrations make for a much more diverse and interesting set of campaigns, taking greater account of national and regional variations within the UK. Labour will probably be more hard-pressed to win decisively in Scotland and Wales than in England, as a result of these changes. In Northern Ireland the issues are quite different, as voters are asked to choose between competing political views of the Belfast Agreement.