Tories can still win, Howard says

Mr Howard has been attacked for his tough immigration stance

The Tories may be 2-0 down at half time but can go on to win the general election, Michael Howard has insisted.

Comparing the race for Number 10 with a football match, Mr Howard said the Conservatives could still win the game and that it was not over until 5 May.

On ITV News' Ballot Box Jury, Mr Howard recalled how his team, Liverpool, were beating Chelsea in the Carling Cup final but lost in the last 10 minutes.

Labour's Alan Milburn said the comments were an attempt at a "back door" win.

Opinion polls have consistently shown Labour leading the Conservatives.

There is a real contest which will be settled by a small number of votes in the battleground seats Alan Milburn, Labour

Mr Howard, speaking to ITV News, said: "I am a football fan. You often find if you are a football fan there is a team that might be two goals down at half-time, they win the game.

"I went to the Carling Cup final a few weeks back to watch my team Liverpool play Chelsea.

"We were ahead until the last 10 minutes and then we were screwed.

"So the election is not over until 5 May and I am confident we can win that."

'Real contest'

Mr Milburn, Labour's election strategist, said the comments were part of a strategy drawn up by Mr Howard's Australian campaign chief Lynton Crosby, designed to play down the Tory threat.

"They are designed to show the Tories are losing and are unlikely to win," he said.

"In reality, as the prime minister has said, this election is close in the marginals.

"Michael Howard's private polling shows just what ours does: there is a real contest which will be settled by a small number of votes in the battleground seats."

Mr Milburn added Mr Howard wanted to "to talk down the Labour vote, to make voters think this is an opportunity to protest rather than a big choice about who governs Britain for the next four or five years", while maximising the Conservative vote.

Immigration fears

Mr Howard also faced further criticism from voters over his tough stance on immigration.

In the latest in a series of broadcast confrontations with voters, he was compared to Enoch Powell - whose famous "rivers of blood" speech on immigration in the 1960s caused uproar.

Eemaan Elmougy urged Mr Howard not to try to sound like he was trying to "frighten people" and "turn things back to 40 years ago and Enoch Powell's days".

Leela Soma, originally from India but now living in Scotland, said: "As a first generation immigrant I think I find it quite worrying that you are moving your party to the right."

She said the refugee quota system planned by the Tories may have meant his own Jewish grandfather, who fled the Holocaust, was not allowed into the country.

But Mr Howard defended his policy on immigration, adding he had met "many people from ethnic minority backgrounds" who agreed with the Conservatives on the issue.

He insisted he was "passionate about the need for proper immigration control" because it was "essential" to maintaining good community relations in Britain.