Blair prepares for a historic third term

Everything is pointing to a May general election in the United Kingdom. The rhetoric by the political parties has increased, campaign slogans have been launched, key electoral issues are being discussed and a pre-election budget was announced on Wednesday. All that is needed now is an official announcement by Prime Minister Tony Blair dissolving Parliament and setting the election date.

The probability is that Mr Blair will be re-elected to a historic third term, and this for a number of reasons: the excellent state of the British economy, Mr Blair's charisma and personal popularity, the huge parliamentary majority that the Labour government currently enjoys, the transformation of the Labour Party to a broad-based centrist party, and the current state of the Opposition Conservative Party.

This is not to say that Mr Blair will have an easy time in getting elected. Far from it, I am sure that if elected he will have a reduced majority in Parliament and the two main Opposition parties will increase their parliamentary representation. I am almost certain that we will not see a repeat of the 1997 and 2001 landslide victories that swept Labour to power.

Since 2001, Mr Blair has lost a considerable amount of popular support, mainly due to his backing for the war in Iraq and the consequent failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in that country, and the Labour government's mixed record on public services and pensioners' rights. Reports of bad blood between Mr Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown haven't helped either.

There can be no doubt, however, that Britain has enjoyed a remarkable economic performance since 1997, and it is for this reason that Mr Blair and the Labour Party are putting the economy at the heart of the electoral campaign. Mr Blair and his Labour government can be criticised for many things but their handling of the economy - certainly the most important electoral issue in any campaign - is not one of them.

Since 1997, Britain has enjoyed low inflation, low unemployment, low mortgage rates and economic stability. Consumer confidence is huge and the housing market has undergone a boom. Britain's labour market flexibility - which has resulted in job creation - has captured the attention of Europe.

Furthermore, Britain has had continuous economic growth since 1992 - so some of the credit for this must go to the Conservative government of John Major. The UK economy is forecast to grow by 2.5 per cent this year, ahead of the most of Europe. Robert Chote, the director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, recently remarked: "By the standards of Britain's past economic performances, the last 10 years have been remarkably stable."

The Opposition Conservative Party, which used to be the party that the electorate trusted to properly manage the economy, is naturally focusing its attention on issues other than the economy, such as the state of public services, the crime rate, immigration, local council taxes and pensioners' rights, all of which are of concern to the average voter and which will no doubt cost Mr Blair some support at the polls.

Perhaps the issue of public services will be most hotly debated in this election. Here Mr Blair has had a mixed record. It is true that many public services were in need of greater funding when he took office in 1997, and such funding has now taken place. In the health service, for example, most observers believe that some improvements have taken place, although much more needs to be done. Waiting lists have been reduced but are too often still unacceptably high. The question Mr Blair always asks is: Has the health sector improved since 1997? This is what British voters will have to decide on Election Day.

On education and crime, the Opposition parties will probably gain votes, as Mr Blair's record has not been particularly good. The crime rate in cities such as London has soared while the guiding philosophy behind the government's education policy seems to be promoting fairness rather than excellence. Discipline in state schools has also remained a huge problem. Furthermore, the British government's decision to order universities to accept a quota of students from state schools at the expense of students from private schools is, I feel, misguided. Students should be accepted purely on a basis of merit and nothing else.

The undeclared electoral campaign has been in full swing for some time now with the two main parties hurling accusations at each other. Labour has accused the Conservatives of wanting to cut £35 billion in public services while the Conservatives have said that Labour is soft on immigration. Both are powerful arguments - which have been denied by the respective parties, but which nonetheless are bound to have an impact on the electorate.

Surprisingly, abortion has become an issue in the election, although it will probably not be a major one. I say 'surprisingly' because abortion has usually been considered a private matter in Britain and not something to be discussed in the political arena. I am delighted, however, that Scotland's Cardinal Keith O'Brien had the courage to urge voters to consider the issue of abortion when voting. Britain's abortion laws are far too liberal and need to be revised.

Mr Blair's Iraqi adventure will surely cost him some support. Although I believe the Prime Minister acted in good faith, many traditional left-leaning Labour supporters have been utterly disappointed by Britain's participation in the war - which was made even worse by the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq, and will either stay away on election day or vote for the Liberal Democrats.

Europe is unlikely to be an issue during the election although the Conservatives will probably try and make political capital out of the fact that opinion polls show the majority of the electorate to be against the European Constitution - which Tony Blair supports. However, in the 2001 election then Conservative leader William Hague had tried to make the adoption of the euro - again, not popular with voters - an electoral issue, but this did not materialise.

Finally, Mr Blair is simply much more charismatic than Conservative leader Michael Howard, who is also often labelled as a throwback to right-wing conservative governments. Even though Mr Blair might have lost some support from among his own MPs - who prefer Gordon Brown - it is a fact that he remains popular among floating voters and he is still the Labour Party's greatest asset who will lead them to a historic third consecutive victory. On balance, I think Mr Blair deserves to win.