London (AFP) -- Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday tried to steer the election debate away from Iraq and back to domestic issues ahead of May 5, even as a mother who lost a son in the war pledged to take the government to court.

The main opposition Conservatives and smaller Liberal Democrats have used a controversy over whether Blair misled the public in the run up to the US-led invasion to score points in the election race.

But they too appeared keen to focus on other issues such as hospitals and the economy in the final six days of campaigning.

Blair and his more popular finance minister Gordon Brown unveiled a poster in London focusing on the economy that signaled with arrows the way forward with Labour and way back with the Conservatives, declaring: "Economic stability. If you value it, vote for it."

"Today we return to the big and fundamental choice facing the country -- forward or back, the Labour government with a strong economy, economic stability, or back with a Tory government that will put that economic stability at risk," Blair told reporters.

"It's only if people come out and support us that the strong economy with investment in health and education and law and order continues," he said.

It was up to the public to decide whether to wake up to a Labour government or a Conservative government on May 6, said Blair.

Asked if he was feeling under pressure, the prime minister replied: "No, but I do think it's important that people understand how big and fundamental the choice is."

A senior Labour aide said earlier the party was keen to move on from the "latest media frenzy on Iraq."

"So from now to May 5, we will be campaigning on the economy and public services, stepping up the time spent on the road," the aide said.

The launch of Labour's business manifesto Thursday, however, was overshadowed by a controversy over the full text of a secret piece of advice Blair received on the legality of the Iraq war that was leaked to the media.

The prime minister then published the 13-page minute from Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith in a bid to lay the matter to rest.

But as he attempted to push Iraq out of the spotlight, Rose Gentle, whose son died in the conflict last year, declared that she would take legal action against the government following the publication of Goldsmith's advice.

"My son was sent to die in a war that the attorney general viewed as illegal without a second United Nations resolution," said Gentle, who is also running in the election against Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram in his Scottish constituency of East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow.

"Tony Blair and the Labour government sent Gordon and 86 other British troops to die in Iraq when he knew that it was an illegal war," she said.

"I will now be taking legal action against the British government for the death of my son in an illegal war.

"I am not a politician trying to score cheap political points but a mother seeking justice for my son, who was killed serving in Iraq."

Private Gordon Gentle, 19, from Glasgow, was serving with the Royal Highland Fusiliers when he was killed in a roadside blast in Basra on June 28, 2004.

The Iraq war has badly damaged Blair's credibility, distracted attention away from the Labour Party's strong record on the economy and eaten into its lead on the Conservatives in opinion polls.

In a bid to widen the attack on Labour, Conservative leader Michael Howard said it was time to focus on "the wider choices" faced by the public.

"We're in the last few days now of the campaign in this general election and it's time to focus on the wider choices people face in this campaign," he told a news conference in Cardiff, the capital of Wales.

"Conservatives are taking a stand on the issues that matter," he said.