CLEARLY determined to answer the mounting criticism that Labour is now elect able but unprincipled, Mr Tony Blair insisted he was a "modern man" yesterday. He claimed his leadership skills had been proved by transforming the party into the "strongest, most professional, most disciplined fighting force in British politics".
With Europe dominating the election campaign for the seventh day in a row, Mr Blair once again attempted to turn the debate to his advantage, insisting the issue was about leadership an4 that he was the only person who could lead Britain into the 21st century.
"Who will best stand up and fight for Britain's interests, John Major, the man who appointed Jacques Santer, who gave us the beef war and the fiasco over BSE and who can't even keep his own party together in the course of an election campaign?" he asked.
"Or me .
Rejecting claims that, he had abandoned all of Labour's principles during his overhaul of the party, Mr Blair said he shared the same basic values as past leaders, the difference being he was a modern man who represented a new generation faced with different political problems.
Insisting that Labour was now electable and principled, Mr Blair stressed it had not simply been a matter of "sacrificing or killing off" policies but liberating the party from "out-dated prescriptions, to allow the values to take root again in the modern world".
However, the Liberal-Democrat leader in the Lords, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, denounced Labour's "over-cautious" election campaign, warning that Mr Blair could not rely upon the support of the Liberal Democrats if he won.
Although Lord Jenkins, a former Labour minister and founder of the SDP, said he hoped Mr Major would lose the election, he called for Mr Blair to demonstrate a "greater degree of courageous radicalism" and suggested a Labour government would lack "radical sinew".
"I can't pretend that the campaign in itself has made a rapprochement any easier. The very cautious campaign fought by the Labour Party, this me-tooist campaign on Europe and Home Office policy, which is tremendously open to criticism, and this over cautious policy on tax, hasn't brought the Lab our Party and the Liberal Democrats close together," he said.