LABOUR leader Tony Blair aims today take the election "by the scruff of the neck" and "make it come alive."

This change of direction may, in truth, be a response to the damage done by Tory attacks on Labour's U-turns on privatisation, the unions and devolution.

But it really would be a mercy if it were to revitalise the election campaign itself and put the focus on real issues.

For already the voters are finding it a huge bore.

And if the next 16 days are to be filled with more of the same negative campaigning and tit-for-tat attacks, then there is a danger that many are turned off completely. That is not good for democracy.

For on top of a huge stock of already-existing cynicism over politics, the prolonged bickering and lack of real debate risks alienating even more voters - to the extent that many will not bother to vote at all and others will cast theirs in a virtual policy vacuum.

Surely, the next government should be chosen on the basis of issues, not on who wins this tedious slanging match.

This campaign has, of course, sunk to this level due to the too-long timetable that, for strategic reasons, John Major chose.

Now that Labour is deemed to have "wobbled" under the weight of negativism, the risk, alas, is that the Tories will go for more and, so, stifle genuine debate.

It will be a great pity if the shape of Britain in the next five years is determined by this unwholesome squabble.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.