Veteran Labour member defects to Lib Dems

Analysis: A jubilant Charles Kennedy claimed a "pivotal" moment in the election campaign yesterday as former Labour MP Brian…

Analysis: A jubilant Charles Kennedy claimed a "pivotal" moment in the election campaign yesterday as former Labour MP Brian Sedgemore defected to the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to give Tony Blair "a bloody nose".

The queue of those hoping to "borrow" the votes of disillusioned Labour voters was also growing, as the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party joined forces to promise a fresh attempt to impeach the prime minister.

Meanwhile, fresh evidence emerged about the unspoken battle to preserve Labour's core vote, with a survey showing the majority of the party's potential new MPs not daring to talk about the war, with just one in 12 of them actually prepared to back Mr Blair's original decision to commit British troops.

As the bile piled on the prime minister's head, the Tories found themselves almost eclipsed, with party leader Michael Howard forced to deny he had scored an own-goal by admitting his party was "two down at half-time".

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Clearly feeling himself on something of a roll, Mr Kennedy last night insisted there was "no ceiling" on what his party could achieve on May 5th, suggesting they were set to win their strongest endorsement from the electorate for a generation.

Mr Kennedy had earlier claimed that the ramifications of Mr Sedgemore's defection would prove very significant.

Clearly relishing his moment in the spotlight, the veteran left-winger pronounced "the tawdry New Labour project" dead, presenting his defection as a deeply principled stand against the war and the "deeply illiberal" measures introduced by the government.

Declaring himself sick of what he termed Mr Blair's "stomach- turning lies" over Iraq, Mr Sedgemore warned of potentially "colossal" abstentions on polling day, and asked: "Who could blame the electorate? The public are surely right to hold politics and politicians in ill-repute. What about the policies, ideas and values which will determine the result of the election?"

With his private pollsters telling him Iraq is not playing on the doorsteps to any significant degree, Mr Blair shrugged off Mr Sedgemore's defection, doubting if people were much interested in the opinions of a man they had never hear of and who was not even a candidate in the election.

However, this second defection of the campaign from Labour to the Lib Dems was reminiscent of the tactics used by New Labour to subvert the Tories in the last two elections.

More importantly, it enabled Mr Kennedy to dominate the news agenda for a second successive day, keeping Iraq to the forefront as some six million postal votes were being distributed across the country.

The leaders of the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties joined the controversy yesterday, suggesting that cross-party consensus could be achieved in the reconfigured House of Commons to enable debate on a motion to impeach Mr Blair over the war.

Plaid Cymru's Westminster leader Elfyn Llwyd said: "It is ironic that the SNP and Plaid Cymru, two nationalist parties who look toward their own destinies and to free-standing parliaments of their own, should be taking up the cudgels on this."

Meanwhile, former foreign secretary Robin Cook added his voice to calls for the government to publish the attorney general's full legal advice on the case for war with Iraq. Mr Cook said press disclosures about Lord Goldsmith's opinion had been "an accident waiting to happen."

And he dismissed the government's argument that the attorney's opinion could not be published on professional lawyer/client grounds.

"This will not wash," he said. "We are not discussing a family solicitor's view on the soundness of Aunt Agatha's will, but official advice on whether the nation had the law on its side when it sent a third of the British army to war."