Oliver Kamm is spot on in his analysis of the election, and the central role of the Iraq war:

Do I trust the Tories on defence? No, I do not. There are individual Conservative candidates - notably Times columnist Michael Gove - whose election would be a good thing for public policy and the quality of British democracy. But overall the politician who merits support in this election is Tony Blair: the man who joined with our American allies to prosecute a just, necessary and noble campaign to overthrow an unspeakable tyranny.

I would add a few other names to the roster of individual Conservative candidates for whom I would happily vote: Greg Clark, Robert Halfon, Nick Herbert and Ed Vaizey. I hope they all win.

In domestic policy terms I can think of only a few reasons to vote Labour. The real story about 5th May is, after all, that if Labour wins Blair is already a lame duck.

Even if Blair won with the same majority as Labour now has, the result would be, at best, treading water for two years until Brown takes over. Blair has been unable with his existing majority to get through his purported real agenda of reform, from Foundation Hospitals to top-up fees, without caving in to the Old Labour backbenches.

It is a reasonable assumption that his majority will be smaller in the next Parliament, and the quirk of the PLP's make up is that the most New Labour-ish MPs have the smallest majorities, so for every loss of a seat, the damage to Blair’s ability to do his own thing gets exponentially worse.

Let’s say Blair wins with a majority of 50. It looks good; but in reality the game is up. Add to the mix a French ‘no’ vote, and what is the point of Blair’s staying? He can’t be ‘unremittingly New Labour’, as we are told he wants to be, because the PLP won’t let him get any real reforms through. And there’s no 'historic' EU decision for which to battle. So what is the point of remaining in office, merely to suffer humiliation at the hands of Brown and the PLP every time he wants to act?

But overall, I too will be treating this election as

a referendum on the veracity, judgement and ethics of the Prime Minister

as Oliver Kamm puts it. And on that basis, I will also be voting Labour. Blair has been courageous in knowingly sacrificing his political capital in order to do what is right. He has been far sighted. He has been a global statesman of immense importance. Most of all, he has been right. And he deserves to win a third term, especially given the shameless opportunism and cynicism of the leader of the opposition.