First mission: to turn the tide in Dorset

It was, in view of recent events, a political triumph of sorts: Tony Blair finally inaugurated the official election campaign yesterday without the deaths of any major religious leaders - or last-minute changes to royal wedding schedules, for that matter - getting in the way.

To be sure, a Labour candidate defected to the Liberal Democrats, and the polls were uniformly bad. But at least the phoney war was over. A more superstitious premier might have resolved not to tempt fate any further. Instead, in the course of a day spent racing across southern England by helicopter, Mr Blair chose to kickstart the campaign beside the sparkling sea in Dorset South, Labour's most endangered seat.

The party's majority there is not all that much bigger than the number of vehicles in his motorcade; even the tiniest swing against the prime minister on May 5 will see the sitting MP, Jim Knight, replaced by a Conservative.

The last election campaign of Mr Blair's career as leader began with the time-honoured drive from Downing Street to Buckingham Palace. (Which, since you can walk it in about 15 minutes, surely represented a missed opportunity for a gesture to underline the PM's commitment to the environment.)

Where the prime minister would go next, after making his statement outside Downing Street, had been a subject of vigorous speculation among journalists, fed by alternately vague and inaccurate hints from the Labour Party.

Luckily, it was beautiful weather for a meandering day-trip through southern England by rail and car, something Mr Blair's aides made possible by first suggesting that the event would be held in south-east England, then south-west England, then, more specifically, Dorset; then - even more specifically, although also wrongly - the town of Swanage. Confusion reigned. Accelerators were stepped on. Signs to Monkey World, a local tourist attraction, whizzed past.

Eventually, Mr Blair's white helicopter landed in Portland, just outside Weymouth, for a speech at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, where staff confirmed that the location had been finalised last week. (Weymouth will host the sailing events in the 2012 Olympics if London's bid for the games is successful.)

The mystery surrounding the location served to limit Mr Blair's encounter with the press primarily to television pictures against the spectacular backdrop of Portland harbour. Labour appears intent on pursuing a campaign strategy of severely limiting the exposure of the prime minister to media questioning, dismissing criticisms of this technique as the self-absorbed concerns of the "Westminster village".

The secrecy also confounded protesters. Seven Conservative supporters were waiting for Mr Blair at Portland heliport, and about four demonstrators gathered outside the academy, holding placards bearing the word "Liar".

But their shouts were drowned out by construction work in the vicinity of the academy, an imposing building of blue plaster and grey metal. If such levels of protest come to typify the campaign, it will be a far less disputatious one for Mr Blair personally than many had come to expect.

Fundamental choice

On a boardwalk balcony at the sailing academy, with the glittering harbour behind him, Mr Blair told an invited audience of Labour supporters the country faced a fundamental choice.

"We have made progress: our economy is strong, mortgage rates are low, unemployment low, inflation low... This is the time to keep the progress going, move the country forward." His audience clutched "Forward not Back" mugs and dined on shrimp with lemon, olives, and boiled potatoes.

Mr Blair next vanished for several minutes, giving his aides time to shuffle a group of local sea cadets into position for an artfully constructed photo-opportunity beside the water. The shirt-sleeved prime minister then returned to shake their hands, and to learn, from a couple of them, how to take a picture with a cameraphone.

"They didn't tell the cadets until the very last minute this morning that they were going to meet the prime minister," said Geoffrey Dyer, the naval officer in charge of the cadets. "I'd say they were suitably impressed."

As a work of symbolism, it was a masterpiece, combining the underlying Olympic theme of the day with smiling children, a faint undertone of militarism - sea cadets being the closest Mr Blair will presumably ever go towards a George Bush-style appearance on board an aircraft carrier - and, in the cameraphone, technological progress. "He seemed a lot friendlier in person than he does on the television," one of the cadets, Anthony Marland, 15, said later.

And then the prime minister was gone, back via helicopter to London, where today he faces Michael Howard for the final prime minister's questions before the end of the parliamentary term. He left enthusiastic supporters milling around the shrimp.

"Ten years ago, round here it was all doom and gloom," said Jim Churchouse, a local county councillor. "But Jim Knight has been very good for the less fortunate people around here. He's a very popular MP."

Despite being won by just 153 votes in 2001, Dorset South, he seemed to suggest, might not end up being all that marginally Labour-held at all at the upcoming election.

One suspects, however, that Mr Blair fully appreciated the audacity of his choice of location, and enjoyed the exhibition of ebullience involved in travelling there.

If he was indeed tempting fate, it seemed to work. By the end of the day, Prince Harry had not announced an imminent marriage to Chelsy Davy, and the Dalai Lama was still very much alive.