Those goods need a little more scrutiny before the nation buys them.So there are great issues to be argued over, even if many other issues have been elbowed off the national agenda Despite everything, our votes remain precious. They should depend on careful thought, narrowed eyes and clear, hard information. That is what we will be bringing you in The Independent during the next few weeks – not, I hope, at tedious or sprawling length, but in proper detail and with a due sense of the election’s importance and possible consequences.Our views, as a pro-reform, liberal and open-minded newspaper, biased in favour of enlightenment, have been hammered out by arguing journalists and heckling readers during 10 years. Other papers will be ordered what to say and do, as their proprietors dither between their political convictions and their thirst to be on the winning side. But this paper has full freedom to speak, and no such pressure This is a great privilege, particularly at election time We will use it seriously and with relish.Andrew Marr. John Major yesterday opened the 1 May election campaign with an appeal to the voters to accept that if it was time for a change, then “we are the change”. That plea was later reinforced by a warning that the election was not a game.

But Tony Blair said: “The Tories keep saying to people that this is the best Britain can be. What I say to people is that Britain can be better than this.” His party’s appeal will undoubt-edly be broadended by the latest in a long line of Labour converts – the Sun, which claimed after the last election it was the Sun “wot won it” for Mr Major in 1992, and in today’s edition comes out for Mr Blair.
For the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown welcomed the chance for the voters to say what they thought of the Government’s “broken promises, incompetence and divisions”.The start of the six-week election campaign was at long last triggered by the Prime Minister with an impromptu Cabinet, a visit to the Palace, and a return to Downing Street, where he announced to television cameras the election timetable.Parliament will sit for the rest of this week, clearing an agreed programme of residual legislation before rising on Friday. It will not meet again before being formally dissolved, by proclamation, on 8 April.Before going out on to the hustings, taking his soapbox from the last election on a flying visit to Luton – a town with two highly marginal Tory seats – Mr Major said that the Government had, since 1979, given the country “a revolution in choice”.He told reporters in Downing Street that in spite of the “bruises and difficulties” he was proud of his party’s 18-year record, before turning to address his biggest weak-spot – the argument that it is time for a change.”If people are looking for change,” Mr Major said, “we are the change, and we’ll carry forward what we’ve been doing for the last 18 years.”Later, in a written statement, he added: “A general election is not some faraway spectator sport or a TV talk-show. It will affect life behind every front door in the land.” What was at stake, he warned, were issues “that touch the cold hard realities of 56 million daily lives.”Mr Blair told Sky News the voters would remember Tory promises of 1992, when Mr Major promised tax cuts, and then raised taxes; his promise not to extend VAT to fuel, before doing so; and his promise to bring crime under control, with violent crime still risingLabour would make a difference on schools, the health service, crime, and jobs. “We aren’t just going to have the rewards going to an elite few at the top,” he said.In a London speech last night, Mr Ashdown said: “The last election is remembered for the War of Jennifer’s Ear. I want this campaign to be remembered for the Plans for Jennifer’s Education … I am de- termined that, every day of this campaign, we focus on how to make Britain the world’s number one learning society in the next century.”All three parties will today hold press conferences, with Kenneth Clarke, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Blair and Mr Ashdown, each putting forward their themes of the day.But the Prime Minister’s first public acceptance of Labour’s challenge for a televised leadership debate was last night getting bogged down in the detailed conditions of Mr Major’s terms of engagement.He said in Downing Street: “I very much wish to meet Mr Blair in debate.” But he then delivered a series of qualifications that left Labour, the Liberal Democrats and other minority parties significantly dissatisfied.Explaining why he did not think that he should have to face both Mr Blair and Mr Ashdown, the Conservative leader said: “After the election, either Mr Blair or I will be Prime Minister I have some sympathy for Mr Ashdown’s position.

I am sure the broadcasters might find some way to involve him, but I think the principal debate will be between the leader of the Labour Party and myself.”A senior Labour source said last night that it was “silly” of broadcasters to respond to that by trying to find ways around the law; trying to accommodate Mr Major’s demand for the exclusion of Mr Ashdown.The source also said the public should not be shut out of the debate; a selected audience should be given the opportunity to put their questions to the party leaders.And as for the Tory preference for one anchor-man to chair the debate, Labour said they would prefer a number of prominent media “heavyweights” to be given the chance of grilling the leaders, and putting them and their policies under the microscope.In Downing Street, Mr Major said: “I believe this election is winnable. Not only do I think it’s winnable, but I think that we are going to win this election.”I remember being asked that on the doorstep of Downing Street in 1992 and I am still here in 1997 and I expect to be here after the election.”But even as Mr Major was speaking, Mr Blair was visiting a South London school before embarking on a visit to Gloucester – a Tory marginal Labour needs to win if it is to get a working Commons majority.. Persuading Pascal Smart, and a probable three million like him to vote on 1 May will be one of the biggest challenges facing John Major and Tony Blair during the campaign. The 24-year-old aspiring musician from Croydon will be following the election campaign closely, but only from a position of “amused superiority” He has no intention of voting. Research suggests that only 40 per cent of the under-25s will vote.
Nothing short of the closure of all nuclear power stations would make Mr Smart change his mind. “I just don’t think any of the main parties handle any of the things that are important – especially for young people in this country,” Mr Smart said en route to his evening job as a pounds 120- a-week barman.

“I’d put the environment higher on the agenda, the decriminalisation of cannabis and the general treatment of youth.”"Young people are basically being disenfranchised. We’re being paid a slave wage so that the Government can make more money out of us. If Labour get in, which they probably will, they will just be running the same system in a slightly different way, which doesn’t really solve anything, because it’s the system which is the problem.”Mr Smart voted for “the lesser of two evils” (Labour) at the last election This time he does not feel he can even do that. “I don’t personally trust Tony Blair, mainly because of the fact that he is so insistent that we can trust him. Essentially, all the Labour Party can say is that the Tory party can’t lead the country and they can, but they don’t say in what way.”Take the environment, for example. The Tory party policy is to build more roads and the Labour Party policy is to say: `That’s wrong.’ It’s just a slanging match.”There is, he said, a problem with the status quo. “Young people are under the impression that this establishment has been the same for hundreds of years and nothing will ever change.

I myself think the only way anything will change is revolution. The existing trend towards large environmental problems will probably cause that. If it doesn’t, we’ll go out quietly.”He has no respect for any of today’s politicians. “They don’t have any more foresight than wondering what is going to be the most popular policies and appealing to the lowest common denominator,” he said.He would, however, be happy to vote for better policies “if anyone came up with any,” regardless of the cost to his own pocket.He liked the idea of participating in a pre-election television debate “Oh yes,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “I’d ask them questions about the environment, human rights and about how to take the system down, back to its foundations, and back again in a more successful manner.”But to Mr Smart’s mind, there is no point in him voting Labour, he said, is going to win anyway “I don’t think it would change anything.