MAJOR SETS ELECTION, AGREES TO DEBATES.

Byline: Warren Hoge The New York Times

Prime Minister John Major on Monday called a national election for May 1, a vote that is widely seen as likely to end his Conservative Party's 18 years in power. He said he would face his opponent, Tony Blair, the leader of the Labor Party, in televised debates, a first in British politics.

Major, who trails Blair by 25 points in a poll published in The Sunday Times this week, had turned aside an invitation for such a face-to-face encounter with Neil Kinnock, his Labor opponent in the general election five years ago, telling the House of Commons: ``Every party politician that expects to lose tries that trick of debate, and every politician who expects to win says no.''

On Monday, he embraced the idea, put forward by Blair months ago, in what appeared to signal the Conservatives' ``presidential'' strategy of putting forward the 53-year-old prime minister himself as the quarrelsome party's greatest asset.

The party hopes that Major's rumpled cardigan-sweater folksiness will compare favorably with the flashier and more youthful image of his 43-year-old opponent that has been polished to a high gleam by his marketing-oriented handlers.

Dressed in a pink shirt and light patterned tie, Major made his announcement in front of his official residence at 10 Downing St. moments after returning from Buckingham Palace. There, in keeping with tradition, he had asked the queen to dissolve Parliament on April 8 in preparation for the election.

Major said his party had overseen a ``revolution in choice, opportunity, and living standards'' and deserved the chance to continue. ``We have changed this country,'' he said. ``We have changed it immeasurably for the better. We have not finished those changes.''

Under the British electoral system, there are no fixed election dates, and the prime minister must only call an election within five years of having taken office.

Major had waited until the last possible moment in the hope that voters would start to credit the Tories for the significant economic recovery that Britain has experienced since 1992. While the economic indicators have continued to rise, however, the popularity of the Conservatives, beset by internal bickering, has continued to decline.

Blair eagerly took note of this phenomenon in welcoming Major's announcement Monday, saying: ``Most people look at the Conservatives and think they are rather incompetent, rather tired and offering rather poor leadership for the country.''

And, as he has been doing in recent weeks, he counseled against overconfidence. ``I don't take anything for granted,'' he said. ``I am the eternal warrior against complacency.''