David Cameron, leader of the main opposition Conservatives, released part of his party's draft manifesto, while finance minister Alistair Darling tried to discredit Tory plans to cut public spending and firm up Britain's finances.

Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has not yet set a date for the election, although it must be held by June and experts say May 6 is the most likely date.

But both parties are jostling for an early advantage. Battered by a record recession and a scandal over lawmakers' expense claims, Britons now face the prospect of five months of electioneering.

Cameron, 43, is tipped by opinion polls to oust Brown, who risks becoming one of Britain's shortest-serving premiers of recent times -- he only took over from Tony Blair in June 2007.

Meanwhile, Blair -- who resigned amid declining popularity after he strongly supported the 2003 Iraq war -- is set to return to haunt Labour.

He is due to give evidence to the public inquiry into the war in the second half of January or early February. Senior Labour figures are reportedly uneasy that his appearance could cause the party problems on the campaign trail.

Blair's former communications chief, Alistair Campbell, is due to appear on January 12 and could also stir things up.

With Britain still in recession -- the only major world economy yet to emerge from the credit crunch -- and state borrowing at record levels, the early focus in campaigning is on the economy.

The Conservatives want quick cuts to bring public spending under control, while Labour favours waiting until the economic outlook is clearer.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Darling accused the Tories of failing to cost their proposed savings properly but declined to say in detail how his party would eventually cut back.

"The Tories have made over 45 billion pounds (51 billion euros, 73 billion dollars) of promises but can barely explain how they can pay for a quarter of this. This leaves them with a credibility gap of 34 billion pounds," he said.

"You can't fight an election on a nod and a wink, sometimes claiming you are committed to these promises and when challenged, claiming you are not."

The Conservatives angrily denied Labour's claims about its spending plans, labelling a Labour document dissecting its plans the "dodgy dossier".

This was a reference to a highly controversial dossier published by Blair's government just before the Iraq invasion outlining the case for war.

Meanwhile, Cameron tried to counter what he says are Labour's "class war" tactics which claim the Tory leader, educated at elite school Eton and Oxford University, is too privileged to understand the problems of ordinary Britons.

While stressing they would make cuts in public services to help the economy, Cameron promised the Tories would spend more money on improving the state-run National Health Service (NHS) in the poorest areas.

"We will cut the deficit, not the NHS, because the NHS is a bedrock of a fairer society," Cameron said, unveiling part of his party's draft manifesto on health. "We cannot go on like this. Let us make this a year of change."

He later appeared to run into trouble over a promise to offer tax breaks for married couples, suggesting in a BBC interview they could not be guaranteed, but then issuing a statement saying they would "definitely" be introduced if the Consevatives won power.

Cameron's centre-right Conservatives have been ahead of Brown's centre-left Labour in opinion polls for months, although the gap has narrowed recently.

A new YouGov survey for Saturday's Daily Telegraph newspaper put the Conservatives on 40 percent, Labour on 30 percent and the third party centre-left Liberal Democrats on 17 percent.

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