Looming election will be 'tough', says Blair

"This election, when it comes, has not been won yet. It will be a tough, tough fight for us. This is going to be a hard, tough election," Blair told BBC radio.

"Nothing should be taken for granted at all, and the surest way to suffer an electoral setback is to take people for granted," he said.

Under British election rules, the incumbent prime minister gets to pick the date of the next election, and while Blair can serve until mid-2006 if he chooses, a poll is widely expected for this May.

The prime minister insisted, however, that no election date had been picked, saying: "If I don't know the date of the election then no-one else does."

Despite seeing his personal popularity take a severe battering due to British public disquiet over the Iraq war, Blair's Labour Party is still the pundits' favourite to win another term in office.