Blair `99 tour is on road again

TONY BLAIR'S "bread-and-butter offensive" hit northern England and Wales as he continued his campaign to shift public attention away from sleaze and on to serious policies.

The Blair roadshow swept into a high school in Blackburn and a community hospital in Mold yesterday before setting off on another presidential style question-and-answer session with Labour members.

Mr Blair used the Lancashire leg of his tour to appear alongside two of his most loyal ministers, Jack Straw and David Blunkett, to announce the Government's plans to improve standards in schools.

He then travelled to Mold Community Hospital, where doctors and patients told him the recent beds shortage and flu crisis had combined to cause chaos in the NHS. GP John Crossland said: "We told him that we believe that funding could cost him the next general election, to which he laughed and said he would always be interested in that."