PM fails to shift election focus

Tony Blair struggled to shift the election away from Iraq today amid fresh questions from lawyers and military chiefs about the legal basis for the war.

The Prime Minister tried to move Labour's campaign back on to the economy but a string of distinguished QCs seized on the publication of the Attorney General's previously secret advice on the conflict. Military chiefs also expressed unease at the prospect of court action by relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and civil rights campaigners.

But Michael Howard's attack on Mr Blair over the war backfired spectacularly when he claimed the Tories would have gone to war even if Saddam Hussein had had no weapons of mass destruction. Describing his stance as "regime change plus", the Tory leader said he would have followed George Bush's approach to the war.

Rose Gentle, the mother of one soldier killed in Iraq, announced today that she would bring a court case against the Government over her son's death. Mrs Gentle confirmed that the action would also involve Reg Keys, who is standing against Mr Blair in Sedgefield, for Military Families against the War.

Critics of the war are sure to pounce on a little-noticed section of the Attorney General's advice which suggested that any military action should be " proportionate" and that "regime change" could not be a lawful objective.

It said such advice should be borne in mind when selecting targets, a warning that suggests there was legal cover only for limited strikes, not outright war.

Lord Boyce, the Chief of Defence Staff during the war, today gave his clearest account yet of exactly what he had told the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, in the week before the bombing began.

Lord Goldsmith had given an equivocal legal opinion on the legality of the war on 7 March but changed his stance after Lord Boyce warned he did not want to expose his troops to court challenge. Lord Boyce said: "I was looking for straightforward black-and-white legal advice, not 'on the one hand, on the other.'"

The former defence chief believes the services are in the clear after Lord Goldsmith sent him a three-line note stating that it was lawful for the services "to join in operations in Iraq, if invited".

But one senior Army officer was less sure. "The soldiers were for it at the time, but now, I recognise, many have

second thoughts," he told the Standard. Maurice Mendelson QC, an expert in international law, today added his voice to those who believed the secret legal advice could be challenged in court.

"The opinion of 7 March looks much like that of a lawyer already straining to the utmost to support a course of action about which he entertains grave doubts, but on which his client is set," he said.

But Mr Howard himself came under fire after he told last night's BBC Question Time that he would still have taken to Britain to war in Iraq, even if he had known that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. "Yes, I would have supported the war, because I think it was the right thing to do," he said.

The Lib-Dems immediately seized on Mr Howard's remarks, pointing out that they undermined the Tories' whole case on the failure to find WMD.

Charles Kennedy rounded on Mr Blair's claim that the release of the Attorney General's advice had been a "damp squib". He told BBC1's Question Time Leaders' Special: "I say to Tony Blair, 'Go and describe these findings as a damp squib to the families of the British service personnel who gave their lives in Iraq and to innocent Iraqi civilians who were killed.'"

Mr Blair was today trying to force the focus onto domestic affairs, warning voters that backing the Tories next week would be gambling with their jobs and mortgages. He was set to turn his fire on the Lib-Dems, warning that history has shown third parties can split the " progressive" vote and bring about a Conservative victory.