John Major Sets May 1 As Election Date

British Prime Minister John Major yesterday announced that the next general election would take place on May 1.

Major met head of state Queen Elizabeth and formally requested her permission to dissolve parliament before calling a general election. Majors visit to the queen followed a meeting of his entire cabinet earlier in the day.

Parliament will be prorogued on March 21 and dissolved on April 8. The new parliament will be summoned to meet on May 7 when the first business will be the election of the Speaker and the swearing in of members.

Tony Blair, leader of the main opposition Labour party, showed his impatience to get campaigning after weeks of a phoney war.

Lets get this thing under way, he told BBC radio.

Labour is fighting to end 18 years in the political wilderness and goes into the election with a huge lead in opinion polls of about 25 percentage points.

Labour, which has moved away from its socialist roots to the centre ground of British politics under Blair, needs a 4.3 per cent swing to win power for the first time since 1979, larger than any it has achieved since 1945.

Equally, Majors ruling Conservatives would have to break all records to claw back their poll deficit if they are to clinch an unprecedented fifth successive term of office.

Major will kick off his campaign with a number of media interviews before starting a series of trips to key parliamentary constituencies around the country.

The campaign has already been hit by its first controversy.

Major has accepted a Blair challenge to take part in televised debates. Blair has never held ministerial office and Majors advisers believe Major can exploit this inexperience, what they term smoking out the Labour leader, in live debate.

But the Liberal Democrats have threatened legal action, saying rules on political impartiality during campaigns meant their leader Paddy Ashdown had to be included in any debate.

Blair said he was convinced a solution could be worked out by the broadcasters and, setting the tone of what is expected to be a bitter campaign, he immediately went on the attack.

Anyone would think that we hadnt been having an election campaign for the last nine months or a year. Frankly theres been very little governing going on in this country for a very considerable period of time, Blair said.

Blair also went on the offensive on one of the issues expected to dominate the campaign the European Union and the single currency being planned by the bloc.

Since it won the 1992 election, Majors party has been badly split over whether Britain should have closer ties with the European Union.

Their unpopularity stems from the sterlings ignominious exit from the European currency grid in September 1992.

Repeating pledges in an article he wrote for Mondays Sun newspaper, traditionally a staunch supporter of the Conservatives, Blair said it was not in Britains national interest to join up to a single currency come what may.

There are formidable obstacles to joining (the currency) in the first wave. What is important is that the key test whenever this issue arises is Britains national interest, Blair added.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine said the campaign would show that Labours new, slick presentation was hollow.

What this election campaign is going to be about is subjecting the Labour party to detailed investigation of the policies thay have got, Heseltine told the BBC. People will find that behind the soundbites lie tax increases and all the familiar things that Labour in power is about.