Soldier father bid to unseat Blair
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 Blair faces toughest battle yet in May 5 parliamentary elections. CNN's Robin Oakley reports.
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LONDON, England -- An anti-Iraq war protester has taken his campaign to unseat Tony Blair to the Prime Minister's traditional stronghold.
Reg Keys, 52, who lost his 20-year-old son in the war, is standing as an Independent in Blair's home district of Sedgefield, in northeastern England.
Keys has been touring the County Durham constituency's small towns, former pit villages and rolling countryside in an open-top bus.
The key plank of his campaign for the May 5 election is the accusation that the prime minister misled the British parliament over the reasons for going to war.
His son, Lance Corporal Tom Keys, 20, was one of six military policemen killed by an Iraqi mob in Al Majar Al Kabir in June 2003.
Keys and his campaign team passed through red-brick housing estates, Newton Aycliffe's draughty shopping center and the former pit village of Chilton before trying to get into Trimdon Constituency Labour Club to speak to locals.
But the steward stopped Keys on the doorstep and informed him it would be illegal to let him in, as the private club was for members only, the UK's Press Association reported.
Instead, Keys posed for photographs outside the club where Blair has celebrated election wins and held a party to mark his 20th anniversary as an MP.
The Independent candidate told PA: "This is where Tony Blair claims it all began.
"I hope they will be drowning their sorrows in beer on May 5."
Keys, a former ambulanceman from Llanuwchllyn, near Bala, North Wales, said his campaign was going well.
He was followed by international media, with journalists from Spain, France and Switzerland.
"I've had an encouraging response from the people," Keys said. He quoted his campaign backer Martin Bell, former Independent MP for Tatton, who described Keys as "not a politician, but what a politician should be."
"I'm someone who can meet people, listen to them and relate to their problems. "We are in a Labour stronghold but where are all the Labour posters?"
Bookmakers were offering odds of 50-1 for Keys to overturn Blair's 17,713 majority.
At the launch of his campaign last month Keys said: "I'm coming for you, Mr. Blair, but I'm going to do it in a civilized way.
"I am a victim of this war," he added. "I made the ultimate sacrifice. I've lost my son.
"How does Blair think those families of dead Iraqis feel? How does he think I felt when I dressed my son for his funeral, combed his beautiful blond hair and tried to avert my vision from the side of his face that had been blown off?" Keys said.
Private ambulance worker Julian Shilbock, 35, of Spennymoor, told PA: "I admire his courage, especially after losing his son.
"I think he has got more focus than the other candidates. He is a genuine person and that comes across well."
'Women moved'
Derek Cattell, a Sedgefield Labour Party member for 30 years until he switched his allegiance to the Keys campaign, claimed women voters were particularly moved by the candidate.
"A lot of people have identified with Reg -- his son came home in a coffin with 31 bullets in him.
"I think people recognize there is a difference between losing your life in a just war, and losing it in an unnecessary and illegal war."
But not everyone was so convinced. Pensioner and Labour stalwart John Loftus believed war in Iraq was justified.
"Of course I sympathize with Mr Keys and his son, but you cannot turn around and blame Mr Blair," the 75-year-old from Shildon said. "It's the same as blaming Winston Churchill for D-Day landings, Dieppe and Arnhem -- these things happen in war.
"There's not another world leader who can come up to Tony Blair's standing."
The Sedgefield Constituency has received a total of 15 nominations for the election on May 5. They are: Berony Anne Abraham (Independent); John, alias John Bradfield Barker (Independent); Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (Labour Party); Cherri Blairout-Gilham (Pensioners Party); Julian Fraser Brennan (Independent); William John Brown (We Want Our Country Back); Robert Woodthorpe Browne (Liberal Democrats); Jonathan McQueen Cockburn (The Blair Must Go Party); Mark Neville Farrell (National Front Britain For The British); Helen John (Independent); Reginald Thomas Keys (Independent); Alan John Lockwood (Conservative Party); Fiona Chistina Luckhurst- Matthews (Veritas); Terence William Pattinson (Senior Citizens Party); Melodie Elizabeth Staniforth, commonly known as Boney Maloney (The Official Monster Raving Loony Party).
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
