BRITISH opposition leader Mr Tony Blair, out to convince US businessmen that Britain will be safe in his hands, said on Thursday the old political divide between right and left was no longer relevant.

Reforms had dragged his Labour Party into the centre of British politics and closer to the concerns of voters, said Mr Blair, in the United States for three days of high profit talks with businessmen and politicians.

"What is interesting about politics both in Britain and here is that some of the old right and left labels "are redundant, and I don't think that is a bad thing," he said on ABC's Good Morning America show.

"For a long period of time, a lot of people from our party moved out of kilter from where the mainstream was ... We have transformed the Labour Party out of all recognition from what people in, America would remember from the 1970s," he said.

"I like to think of us now leading a new generation of politicians from the centre as well as the left, capable of providing real change for our country."

Mr Blair, who has forced Labour to ditch old socialist dogmas and reform its constitution since he took over the party leaders hip two years ago, stands 30 points ahead in polls. He has taken advantage of his US trip to drive home the message that Britain under a Labour administration would be a low tax economy ideal for investment.

Mr Blair is due to expand on these themes in a keynote speech to business leaders in New York, when he is also expected to promise middle class voters at home they need not fear tax increases under a Labour government.

His US visit has already got off to a good start with a warm welcome for the Labour leader from. Wall Street executives on Wednesday night. Fund managers and other representatives of top Wall Street firms greeted with warm applause Mr Blair's promise that Labour had left behind its old tax and spend attitude.