Election '97: Pastries, punks and pep talks ... on the road with Tony, John and Paddy: Colin Brown with John Major

The most striking image to date of John Major's tour has been the Prime Minister being heckled in the market square at Brecon by a student with a bright red mohican haircut. And that is the way the Tory campaign strategists like it. Mr Major is fulfilling his commitment to the party conference last year to be out on the street fighting to win against all the odds.

He is approaching his campaign like the leader of the opposition and is attempting to unsettle Labour, which means making himself available to challenge Tony Blair at every opportunity, from the soapbox, the street and the new platform attached to his battle bus.

His rallying speech to party supporters at the JCB plant on Thursday was almost exclusively devoted to challenges to Mr Blair.

It is Mr Major's stock in trade on the street; he gets the biggest cheers for accusing Mr Blair of hypocrisy on education for his son. He frequently jokes about Mr Blair being chicken for not facing him in a television debate.

The soapbox is also Mr Major's natural battleground, the Brixton boy trying to convince the unconvertible on the streets.

It is a style of campaigning foreign to many modern politicians briefed on television technique. But Mr Major is also acutely aware of the cameras. Never prepared to kick a ball, kiss a child or pull a pint for the cameras in case the image backfires. At the Bradford Museum of Photography, he refused to hold a camera, leaving it to his wife, Norma, to steal the show.

There have been times when he tetchily refused to answer questions. On the racecourse at Aintree on Monday, after the Grand National, Mr Major was prepared to do "a doorstep" with reporters on the IRA's failure to stop the race, but reporters were warned off mentioning Neil Hamilton and Martin Bell. Jon Sopel of the BBC was ordered by an aide "not to spoil it" by asking questions that had been put to Mr Major in the morning.

The adoption of Mr Hamilton and the disarray in the Labour ranks on privatisation, the unions and Scotland have produced a transformation in his mood. From Mr Snappy on Tuesday, Mr Major had become Mr Accessible on Wednesday, even chatting happily to the press on board his loaned British Midland 737 as it flew back from Brecon. He appeared genuinely relaxed and enjoying taking the fight to Labour at last. At yesterday's press conference he turned his fire on Labour spin doctors - accusing them of treating their leader as if he had "the Plague".

Addressing the assembled throng of reporters, he said Labour was intent on keeping Mr Blair "away from our questioning, [and] away from you rough lot whenever they possibly can".

He went on: "They are keeping Mr Blair out of the way as if he was the Plague - or New Black Death as no doubt they would call it. It reminds me of the old cry - bring out your dead."