TONY BLAIR put the North-East in the election spotlight yesterday by unveiling the six pledges he hopes will secure him an unprecedented third term as Prime Minister.

He arrived by helicopter at his party's spring conference at the Sage, in Gateshead, at the end of a whistlestop tour of the country.

On each stop, he unveiled a pledge until, by the end of the day in the North-East, he had covered the economy, health, education, immigration, and crime.

Before a crowd of 2,000 cheering delegates in the £70m centre, Mr Blair added the sixth: childcare.

"We are trying to say that in the last seven or eight years, not everything has changed for the better in your country, of course not," he said.

"Not everything is as we would want it - life is still a struggle. But my goodness, this country has moved forward in terms of healthcare, education, economic stability and investment in public services."

He said the promises showed Labour had an agenda to take Britain "forward, not back" and to deliver the increasing choice and quality of public services demanded by voters.

But the Conservatives had a poster van touring Tyneside branding it Groundhog Day. They accused Mr Blair of recycling promises that he had failed to deliver during his first two terms in office.

Yesterday's pledges offer general "feelgood" improvements to life, rather than specific figures on numbers of police to be recruited or hospital waiting lists to be cut.

Election co-ordinator and Darlington MP Alan Milburn denied that they were vague, pointing out that each was backed up by a set of concrete commitments drawn from the departmental five-year plans published over the past few weeks.

There was a new proposal for parental leave in the months after a child's birth. Mothers currently have the right to six months' paid maternity leave, due to rise to nine months by 2007.

Under the proposals, parents could decide for themselves whether the mother or father stays at home during this period.

Senior party aides said the proposal was emblematic of Labour's intention to personalise this year's pledges, so that they offer tangible improvements to individuals' lives.

Other eye-catching proposals included an 18-week maximum wait for NHS treatment, low-cost homes for 80,000 people, and neighbourhood policing teams for every community.

Mr Blair's helicopter tour took him from Battersea, in south London, to Kettering, Warwick, Leeds/Bradford airport and Shipley before he arrived in Gateshead.

The frenetic activity heightened speculation that the election may be brought forward from the expected date of May 5, but Mr Blair said he had not yet settled on a date.

Conservative co-chairman Liam Fox said: "Tony Blair has had almost eight years in power, and now, just weeks before a general election, he claims that he has the answers to the problems we face."

Liberal Democrat party chairman Matthew Taylor said: "All the pledges in the world won't restore the public's trust in this Government. From tuition fees to the war in Iraq, Labour has failed to be honest and straightforward with the public."

UK Independence Party leader Roger Knapman compared the pledges to "Orwellian doublespeak". The promises were almost the exact opposite of what Labour had achieved in office, he said.

Today at the conference, Mr Blair will take part in a question and answer session, which party officials are promising will use technology to involve ordinary people outside the hall.

The main speech this morning will come from Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

He said last night: "I'm going to continue with a determination that we have economic stability, we do not put that at risk.

"The dividing line in the coming election will be between £35bn of cuts under the Conservatives or extra spending on health and education under Labour, and a Conservative plan on the economy that would put the stability and growth of the economy at risk, as against Labour's record of being both competent on the economy and delivering economic growth."

Despite widespread predictions that he will miss his "golden rule" of balancing the books over the economic cycle, Mr Brown, speaking in Gateshead to Channel 4, said he would confirm in his Budget speech that he was on track to meet all his fiscal rules.

He said: "My promise this time is that we will do everything in our power to keep inflation low, to keep interest rates as low as possible, to help more people buy their own homes, to raise the minimum wage and to help more people from welfare to work."