British Prime Minister Tony Blair?s opinion poll lead was barely dented yesterday despite new opposition accusations he deceived Britons on Iraq, putting him firmly on track to win a general election on Thursday.

Blair is widely expected to team up with finance minister Gordon Brown in an effort to try to shift the attention of voters onto Labour?s preferred battleground, the economy, which has been buoyant since he came to power in 1997. A YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph newspaper put Labour on 36 percent, the main opposition Conservatives on 33 percent and the Liberal Democrats on 24 percent. The poll was conducted between April 29 and May 1.

The figures would give Blair a parliamentary majority of 92 seats, well down from his present 161 but still a sizeable win. Polls in the past few days have shown Labour with leads of three to eight percentage points over the Conservatives.

<B>PM rejects Iraq report</B>

On Sunday, Blair rejected a report he struck a pact with President Bush on Iraq eight months before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, though he said his government had discussed possible ways to topple Saddam Hussein in July 2002.

Polls show Iraq is not high among voters? priorities, but there has been persistent controversy over the war and Blair?s foes have called him a liar and questioned his trustworthiness.

Blair hit back after his rivals seized on a leaked memo of a government meeting in July 2002 published in the Sunday Times. He said talks on ?regime change? took place, but added: ?The idea we?d decided definitively for military action at that stage is wrong and disproved by the fact that several months later we went back to the United Nations to get a final resolution.?

Britain?s electoral map, which concentrates constituencies in Labour?s urban strongholds, means the Conservatives must win a larger share of the vote than Labour to take power.

Conservative leader Michael Howard, who has repeatedly labeled the prime minister a liar over Iraq, urged voters to ?hold Mr Blair to account? for broken promises and half-truths.

The Liberal Democrats, the only large party that consistently opposed the war, said Iraq would dog Blair even if he won a third term, making him a lame-duck leader. Blair warned Labour supporters that a protest vote for the Liberal Democrats could hand power to the Conservatives.

?There isn?t going to be a Liberal Democrat government, but what there could be is Liberal Democrat votes that let the (Conservatives) in,? Blair told a rally on Sunday.

<B>Katherine BALDWIN</B>

<B>UK parties go hi-tech in search of swing voters </B>

Two old friends, once briefly among the most important characters in Britain, have been missing from the run-up to Thursday?s election. Mondeo Man and Worcester Woman were stereotype voters seen by strategists as key to Prime Minister Tony Blair?s landslide wins in 1997 and 2001. Mondeo Man was a middle-income homeowner in his 30s named after his solid but unexciting car. Worcester Woman was married, middle-aged, lower middle-class and lived in central England. Back then, their votes were assiduously courted by the two main parties, Blair?s Labour and the main opposition Conservatives. Now they are history, unceremoniously dumped as far too general models of the electorate. The parties are now looking for a much more diverse range of voting blocs. To help find them, and in particular the all-important undecided and swing voters, they have turned to credit-scoring company Experian and its computer programme Mosaic. Using the 2001 census and other consumer data, Mosaic breaks down Britain?s 23 million households into 61 quirkily named sub-groups such as Urban Intelligence, Cultural Leadership, Symbols of Success and Blue Collar Enterprise. Major retail chains have long been using this data and Britain?s parties believe Mosaic will enable them to target their message more effectively as well as better manage their campaign resources to help win key marginal seats.