The Prime Minister returns to face the music

Blair Determined to Focus on the "Big Picture"

Tony Blair, his wife Cherie and their three children - Euan, Nicholas and Kathryn - touched down in London after flying home from a break in France and Italy.

Mr Blair went straight to Chequers - the prime ministerial country home in Buckinghamshire - and will not be back in Downing Street until Thursday.

The Blair family: summer holiday

He is working on a series of key speeches aimed at spelling out to the electorate that he intends to focus on "big picture" issues such as health and education and on delivering Labour's key manifesto pledges.

A senior spokesman said: "He is a big picture politician who keeps focused on the big picture because that is where modern politicians have to be."

The Conservative leader, William Hague, criticised Mr Blair and his "incompetent" Government even before the Prime Minister's plane had touched down.

William Hague: "Blair's big picture is out of focus"

"Let us hope that now Mr Blair is back he will get a grip on his Government," he said.

Mr Hague accused ministers of dithering over university fees, meddling over the Millennium Dome, vacillating over Montserrat and being embarrassed as party in-fighting in Scotland was exposed.

His spokesman said the Prime Minister would be beginning work on three major speeches in coming days and weeks - the first at a party rally in the North at the weekend to be followed by an address to the TUC conference on September 9 and then his critical party conference speech on September 30.

On Thursday morning, he will meet his Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam ahead of the expected announcement that the Government accepts the validity of the IRA ceasefire and is therefore prepared to allow them into all-party talks beginning in mid-September.

Mr Blair also plans to campaign for Scottish devolution on either side of the weekend which he and Mrs Blair will spend with the Queen at Balmoral on September 6 and 7.