POLITICAL pundits might be forecasting that Eastleigh is a two-horse race between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives.

But Labour's Westminster hopeful Chris Watt says the message he is getting from the doorsteps is that it is going to be extremely close between all three major parties.

With less than two weeks away from polling day the 28-year-old Labour candidate was in a buoyant mood as he went shopping for votes at Eastleigh's Thursday market.

On paper Mr Watt faces an enormous uphill task to become Eastleigh's first Labour MP.

At the 2001 General Election Labour could only manage third place with its then candidate Sam Jaffa. The party trailed the second placed Conservatives by about 6,000 votes.

But Mr Watt is confident that Labour can make big inroads into the Eastleigh poll. "It is very much a three-way fight in Eastleigh," he says.

And he believes that the future of the National Health Service will figure high when people come to register their vote on May 5.

Yesterday Mr Watt was campaigning against Conservative plans to introduce charges into the NHS.

He said there was a good response from all age groups and within a couple of hours they had collected 250 signatures on a Keep the NHS Free petition, which will be sent to Health Secretary Dr John Reid.

Mr Watt said: "Labour created the NHS. I am extremely proud of our health service and the doctors, nurses, porters, cleaners and others who work tirelessly for it.

"We want to keep an NHS with equal access free at the point of delivery."

He added: "The Conservative policy would give people half of the cost towards an operation in the private sector if they felt they had too long to wait in the NHS.

"But the other half of the cost would have to be met by the patient, meaning that those who could afford it could jump the queue.

"While those on the lowest incomes, such as many poor pensioners, would not receive any help."