Tony Blair joins the campaign trial

Blair Ignores Labour Defection at Uxbridge

BBC Political Correspondent Carole Walker reports on the day's events in Uxbridge

Mr Blair was welcomed in Uxbridge, west London, by crowds several hundred strong. He shook people's hands; he even kissed babies. He did not respond to questions from journalists asking him about disaffection in the local Labour Party.

The Prime Minister told a gathering in the centre of town: "The most important thing we can do as a country, indeed as a Government, is to make sure we can deliver on the things we said we could do."

He pointed to the £1.2 billion of extra spending for the NHS which had been delivered in the Budget. He said it would be a health service "run as a national health service", not as the Conservatives had done, which was to run it as "some sort of enterprise broken up into bits and fragments and sold off".

Delivering on Promises

He said that if Labour was to get the result it needed in Uxbridge, it would strengthen the determination of the Government to deliver on its promises.

Mr Blair met a stiff question from one member of the crowd who said he had been a union man all his life and a Labour voter, but he said he would be voting for the Conservative candidate because he was the local man.

He shouted after Mr Blair: "Why haven't you picked the local man?" He said: "If the previous candidate was good enough for the election, what's wrong with him now?"

The Prime Minister was praised by one Liberal Democrat supporter who told him: "Well done for letting Paddy Ashdown in" - a reference to Mr Blair appointing Liberal Democrats to a Cabinet sub-committee.

The Prime Minister's decision to break with tradition and join in the by-election campaign carries a definite risk. If the poll goes against Labour it will be an embarrassing blow to Mr Blair's prestige. At the moment Labour and the Tories are running neck and neck and the result is too close to call.

There are 11 candidates in the Uxbridge by-election.