THE next general election could be a lot more interesting than 2001 and more interesting than many of us had feared. Tony Blair and Michael Howard both set out yesterday where they want to fight the campaign, and it is on the same ground.

First, the battlefield is not Europe, immigration or asylum. It is the core of the domestic agenda, health and education, the top priorities for voters. Mr Blair, at his monthly news conference, and Mr Howard, in a big speech on public services, talked about their general priorities.

The two leaders have parallel reasons for highlighting public services, to demonstrate that they share voters’ concerns. Mr Howard wants to show that he has a positive programme for voters to back, rather than just a negative list of reasons to reject Labour. Mr Blair wants to convince voters that he is not spending all his time on Iraq. Labour Party research has shown that many voters believe that he is neglecting their concerns in favour of overseas visits.

Mr Blair claimed that, despite Iraq, he had been spending more time on domestic matters such as criminal justice. He said that the public wanted to know that the issues of a strong economy, public services, social justice and law and order “still drive me and get me up in the morning and want to do the job”. So from now on it is going to be wall-to-wall domestic initiatives, starting with the NHS five-year plan next week, then the spending review and reform plans for other services.

Mr Blair’s starting point was the need to preserve the new Labour coalition that had produced the big victories in 1997 and 2001: the combination of “those at the bottom and who wanted to rise and the middle classes who wanted to aspire but also had compassion”. This means giving consumers of public services more choice through what is described as personalised learning and health provision. This involves greater diversity on the supply side, via more diagnostic and treatment centres, specialist schools and city academies. All would remain tax funded.

Mr Howard is also aiming at the aspiring middle classes, whom he wants to detach from the new Labour coalition. He presented “right to choose” as an updated version of the Tories’ appealing 1980s theme of the “right to buy”. This is potentially fruitful territory for the Tories, given the suspicions of many Labour MPs and advisers with the whole idea of choice and personalised services. Mr Howard merely set out general principles. These will be filled out over the next few weeks, but there remains considerable ambiguity about how they would work: would taxes help to finance those using private health and education? This would be very costly.

There is a lot to debate here. There are similarities between the Blair and Howard visions, in accepting a diversity of provision, as in many traditionally social democratic countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands. There are differences over the balance between choice and intervention, and over the roles of tax and private finance. Many in Labour would prefer to concentrate on “Labour spending versus Tory cuts”, but this is likely to turn voters off. The key is what the parties say about the structure of public services.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• An officer and a gentle woman
• Dame Helen Mirren is worthy of the Epidaurus
• Foods that can help to prevent swine flu