Britain's party leaders embarked on one final push yesterday before a knife-edge election on May 6 as polls suggested the opposition Conservatives' lead is up but still falls short of an outright win.
The party's leader, would-be prime minister David Cameron, insisted he was "not taking anything for granted" and that there were still several days of "very, very intense" campaigning to go.
But he pledged a different style of government to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour if he wins - plus changes like an emergency budget within 50 days and quickly setting up a "war cabinet" on the conflict in Afghanistan.
"I think we've got some momentum now to go through these last few days and say if you want a new prime minister, a new team, a new government on Friday, then vote Conservative on Thursday and we can make the changes the country needs," Mr Cameron told the BBC.
He also criticised Mr Brown's government for what he said was its short-termist gimmickry, adding it had been run "as a sort of branch of the entertainment industry".
"The style of government I aspire to is one of quiet effectiveness," Mr Cameron said.
New opinion polls yesterday put Mr Cameron's Tories ahead, although not necessarily with enough to win an overall majority in the House of Commons.
A ComRes phone poll of 1,019 adults for the Sunday Mirror and Independent on Sunday put the Conservatives on 38 per cent, up two points in the last week.
Labour were on 28 per cent in second and Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats were third on 25 per cent, down one.
An ICM/Sunday Telegraph phone survey of 1,019 meanwhile gave the Conservatives 36 per cent, up one point in the last week, Labour on 29 per cent, up three, and the Liberal Democrats on 27 per cent, down four.
With the election shaping up as a close battle, different opinion polls have painted different pictures of what is likely to happen, but most agree Britain is heading for a hung parliament, where no one party has an overall majority.
This could leave the Liberal Democrats with the balance of power and see them teaming up with Labour or the Conservatives, or lead to a minority government.
Mr Cameron was out campaigning in southwest England yesterday.
Meanwhile, Mr Clegg showed his confidence despite falling ratings by trying to appeal to disenchanted Labour voters in the party's northern England heartland.
"To people who've supported Labour for many, many years, I want to tell them: I understand how difficult it is. It feels almost like a betrayal. But Labour has let you down", he told voters in Burnley, a former cotton town.
Mr Brown was doing a whistle-stop tour of London, knocking on doors, visiting a church and supporting local Labour lawmakers.
In an admission of the struggle he faces to keep power, he told voters: "I'm fighting for my life, but I'm not fighting for myself. I'm fighting for the British people."
Labour's campaign hit trouble last week when Mr Brown was caught referring to a voter as a "bigoted woman".