Ruling party ropes in Tony Blair for campaign

London : Tony Blair is to play a key role in Labour's election campaign with a brief to target David Cameron's "failure" to modernise the Conservatives.

The high-risk strategy will see the former prime minister make a series of carefully timed interventions in the run-up to polling day, expected on May 6.

Senior Labour sources confirmed that Gordon Brown had sealed a new pact with his predecessor to bring him on board.

"Tony's absolutely up for it," a close friend of Blair said.

News of Blair's front line political return comes ahead of this week's budget statement in which Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, will aim a series of measures at key groups of voters including motorists and young people struggling to find a job.

As the Conservatives prepare a poster campaign aimed at warning Britain of the danger of another five years of Brown, Labour is to turn to the man who led the party to three successive election victories.

Risky strategy

However, the strategy is extremely risky as Blair's popularity ratings had dropped considerably by the time he left office in 2007. He became associated in voters' minds with the Iraq War and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.