A CURIOUS paradox emerges in politics as Tory leader William Hague, trailering the thrust of his forthcoming general election campaign, accuses Labour of abandoning so-called Middle Britain.

For, at the same time, Tony Blair finds himself beset by rumbles of discontent from traditional Labour voters in the party's historic heartlands for allegedly ignoring their concerns and pandering instead to those of the middle-class voters whom Mr Hague says he has betrayed.

Labour recently sought to imply that it sees no such distinctions -- remember Mr Blair suggesting that the North-South divide does not exist -- but its recent NHS-boosting Budget indicates that it has now become alert to the prospect of a grassroots' backlash.

It cannot, however, afford to neglect Middle Britain.

It was, after all, the middle class voters who helped them to power in 1997 and the centre-ground is the pivotal arena of British politics.

Mr Hague had been adrift from this sector of the electorate when he pandered to right-wing voters and was charmed by the Euro-sceptics whose rifts had helped the Tories to lose so badly last time.

Now he recognises it as the "mainstream majority."

Whether they are as aware of Labour's alleged abandonment of them as Tory strategists believe is uncertain, since the opinion polls are not yet strongly reflecting any great dislike of the government. But Mr Hague seems to have shrewdly spotted what their concerns are when, at the weekend, he launched a blistering attack on the government and claimed it was his party which was now speaking for the broad majority of the British people.

He latched on to the hostility to stealth taxes, rising crime, asylum-seekers, devolution, gay rights, the EU and the euro -- quite a check-list, to which, despite the government's renewed emphasis on improving the NHS, he might also have added the hospital waiting lists.

But if Mr Hague imagines that this agenda of Middle Britain will propel the Tories back into power, he may have to dilute his hopes for them having a good enough result to trim Labour's massive majority and for him to retain his party's leadership. For what the strategy amounts to a string of negatives in the form of complaints about Labour's performance whereas it is weak on the positives as to what a Conservative government would do.

Observers will have noted the Tories' move to the centre ground and Labour's step back to the Left, but neither dare depart too far from the concerns of Middle Britain -- where at present voters are forking out £50 to fill up their Mondeos and have lost their married person's tax allowances and mortgage relief that once eased the sting.

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