"A strong economy, a strong society and a strong Britain." With those words, Mr Blair launched the Labour Party's manifesto yesterday, promising far-reaching reform of public services and the creation of a "modern, fair" Britain.
Mr Blair abandoned London, the traditional setting for manifesto launches, to travel to the International Convention Centre in the Labour "heartland" of Birmingham to tell voters a second Labour term would deliver "real and radical" change, with better public services and no increase in the basic rate of income tax.
"We know how much still needs to be done," he declared, addressing concerns in this election about apathy among traditional Labour voters. "But we have made a start. There is progress. Now we seek the chance to continue the work we have begun."
Introducing "Ambitions for Britain", a manifesto that was essentially a restatement of familiar New Labour ideas on improved public services and continued economic growth and which contained few new policy commitments, Mr Blair said a Labour government would be guided by one principle - the fulfilment of potential. Not just human potential, but the potential of public services too.
He asked the British people for a mandate to "get on with the job" beyond the next election, in fact for the next 10 years. "This manifesto is driven by one central idea; how we create a society in which people rise to the highest level their talents take them, whatever their background, class, race or position. That is the New Labour vision and it is one worth fighting for," he said.
The choice was starker than in 1997, because the Conservatives had swung even further to the right, but Mr Blair said his government would not take power for granted.
"No dogma, no vested interest" would get in the way of real change, he said. "As long as there is one child in poverty, one pensioner in poverty, one person denied their chance in life, this is one Prime Minister and one party who will have no rest, no vanity in achievement, no sense of mission completed. We reject the quiet life. With this manifesto, our route map, we now ask the British people for a mandate to get on with the job. A mandate for investment. A mandate for reform. A mandate to continue."
The delivery of reformed public services, Mr Blair indicated, could come in the form of an increased role for the private sector. In a speech that some Labour traditionalists will view with increasing alarm, Mr Blair said Labour considered the greater involvement of the private sector in hospitals and schools should be an "open question".
On the euro, Mr Blair said: "There is often a sense in which people believe the economic conditions are just a sort of camouflage for what is essentially a political decision. They are not. The economic conditions are absolutely essential."
He argued that if Britain had joined the euro a couple of years ago, it would not have been good for the economy.
Challenged on the single European currency, Mr Blair said that in principle the government was in favour of British membership, but in practice the five economic tests had to be met.
The Conservative leader, Mr William Hague, seized the opportunity to retaliate during a visit to the Millennium Dome where he dismissed the manifesto as a "watered-down version of the same promises they made last time". Mr Hague said the Dome was to be the "first paragraph" of Labour's record in power, "instead it stands as the last word on why Britain cannot afford another four years of Labour". Voters would "see through" Labour's promise to reform public services, he insisted: "They say all this, but at the end of four years, teachers are snowed down with paperwork, doctors and nurses are suffering from excessive political interference and the police have too much form-filling and bureaucracy."
The Liberal Democrat leader, Mr Charles Kennedy, meanwhile, said Labour's manifesto had "made the case for us" on raising taxes to pay for public services.
He insisted: "The biggest disappointment of the manifesto is a reflection of the big disappointment that has been this Labour government: it is the poverty of ambition."