Mr Blair angered his critics by ruling out a change of strategy to appeal to voters in Labour's traditional strongholds, following the party's defeat in this month's European elections. Mr Blair will today seek to calm the nerves of Labour MPs when he answers questions at their weekly meetings. Many are worried that mass abstentions in the Euro poll threatens their own re-election prospects."Some people are working themselves into a lather," a Cabinet minister said. "There is no need to panic; the next election will not be fought on Europe alone."The Prime Minister will disappoint those MPs who hoped he would tone down his pursuit of middle-class voters by wooing working-class people.Yesterday he told a conference in Birmingham: "While I am leader of my party and Prime Minister of this country, I will never again have Britain forced to choose between a Labour Party that ignored the importance of business and ambition, and a right-wing Conservative Party which ignored the need for justice and compassion."Mr Blair, who was speaking at a conference on the New Deal programme for the jobless, said the scheme was "New Labour in action"."You tell me what other government has ever cut long-term youth unemployment in half in just two years There isn't one. But we have."Emphasising Labour's appeal to all sections of society, Mr Blair said: "We have introduced a minimum wage while giving people the lowest mortgage rates for 30 years ... We have given people the largest rise in child benefit, but we have also cut business taxes."Mr Blair received a boost in his battle against his critics yesterday when moderates gained a seat from the left in the annual elections to Labour's National Executive Committee.

Lord Sawyer, the party's popular former general secretary, topped the poll, defeating Pete Willsman, one of four members of the left-wing Grassroots Alliance elected last year.Blairites welcomed the results, saying party members had punished left- wingers who had indulged in "trouble-making rather than constructive criticism". However, the Grassroots Alliance increased its share of the vote from 45 per cent last year to 47 per cent.Mark Seddon, a member of the alliance and the editor of Tribune, criticised Mr Blair's speech yesterday, accusing him of taking "an aggressive stand" against Old Labour.He also attacked proposals by Labour officials, revealed in The Independent yesterday, to encourage constituency parties to replace their general committees with all-member meetings.. THERE ARE few more potent symbols of Blackburn's alliance with the working man than the Brewery Tap pub. It is set in the walls of the town's Thwaites brewery on Barbara Castle Way, a road which will never let Blackburn forget the grandest ally of its working class.

Breweries and the Royal Ordnance factory employed much of the workforce here 15 years ago Now it's the council and several hypermarkets. The old-style working man has gone and (judging by the European elections) so has theLabour vote - even though Jack Straw is the MP. The Euro turn- out was an embarrassing 17.18 per cent and the swing from Labour to Conservative 14.1 per cent. "We are no longer a part of Millbank's kind of politics, even though Tony Blair is a North MP," said John Arnold, tucking into a jacket potato in The Brewery Tap, yesterday. "They didn't come out to talk to us about the elections so everyone still thinks Europe's a joke about the size of bananas."The town's former MP, Baroness Castle, 88, would agree. "We have watched New Labour jettison the achievements of past years as ideological baggage which must be dumped in the name of modernisation," she said recently.Even Phil Riley, secretary of Blackburn's constituency Labour Party struggles to resist the suggestion that Millbank is remote now "I suspect the answer to that is slightly yes," he said. It was delicate phraseology considering Mr Blair, in documents obtained by The Independent, had said some constituency parties are akin to Trotter's Independent Traders from the BBC's Only Fools and Horses.Since even Mr Riley struggled to get his party activists interested in the European elections, it would be wrong to depict the low Blackburn turn-out as the working classes deserting Blair.