Tony Blair today unveiled Labour's election manifesto - and vowed to transform public services over the next 10 years.

The 44-page document called Ambition for Britain sets out a "radical agenda" for another two terms of Government.

The Prime Minister launched the election blueprint in Birmingham in a sweeping speech lasting just under an hour.

The Labour masterplan focuses on secondary school reform, cutting NHS bureaucracy, and the need to invest in science and technology.

The party also renewed its pledge not to increase the basic and higher rates of income tax.

Mr Blair said: "This is a manifesto that takes the next steps to building a strong economy, a strong society and a strong Britain. It's a manifesto with a big ambition for Britain."

He added: "I ask the British people to let us get on with the job."

Labour hopes its manifesto will shift the focus away from the tax and spending row to a debate about the future of public services.

The 28,000-word document is broken down into five chapters - including goals over the next 10 years and five steps for the next term.

It includes the pledge to provide an extra 10,000 teachers within five years and a renewed drive on secondary school standards along with an increase in specialist schools.

Labour is promising to recruit an extra 6,000 police officers, halve burglaries over 10 years, reform the Criminal Justice System and introduce a Victims Rights Bill.

Investment in the health service includes pledges for 20,000 extra nurses and 10,000 doctors.

But the increases will be linked to more controversial reforms of the NHS which may not go down with Labour's old guard.

However, Mr Blair warned: "There will be no ideological bar to reform and no vested interest standing in our way."

Mr Blair wants to create NHS-funded but privately run surgeries to shoulder the burden of routine operations and slash waiting lists.

The radical overhaul would see operations like hernias and hip replacements transferred out of the public sector.

It would also dramatically reduce waiting lists by removing 200,000 operations from the NHS by 2004.

Other manifesto proposals include raising the Minimum Wage from the current £4 to £4.20, reducing the welfare bill in half by 2006 and further reform of the House of Lords - with the abolition of the remaining 92 hereditary peers.

Labour is also bidding to capture the 'grey vote' with a commitment to keep the £200 winter fuel allowance along with the Chancellor's plans to top up pensioners' credits.

The party is also promising another free vote on foxhunting early in the new Parliament.

Conservative leader William Hague marked Labour's manifesto launch by going to the Millennium Dome.

He said: "The Dome was to be the first paragraph of today's manifesto - instead it stands as the last word on why Britain cannot afford another four years of Labour."

Malcolm Bruce, chairman of the Liberal Democrats, accused Labour of being "guilty of a poverty of ambition for schools, hospitals and pensioners".

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Updated: 13.35 Wednesday, May 16