Leading Article: The Tories tell lies because we let them

On Tuesday the Conservatives made 89 allegations about Labour's spending plans. Perhaps 10 or a dozen of them were reasonable queries about Labour policies. The remainder - nearly 80 - are Tory lies. Labour has not promised to spend the money as the Tories claimed - indeed, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have succeeded in ensuring that none of Labour's spokespeople makes any commitments that are not accounted for.

Yesterday the Government was at it again, this time on Labour's proposal for a windfall tax on privatised utilities. The Prime Minister told us the levy would cost people pounds 200 on their gas and electricity bills. Another lie. The windfall levy will hit shareholders, not customers.

A few exaggerations here and there are part of the game in the run-up to an election. Politicians desperate to catch and hold voters' attention will simplify their claims and caricature the opposition. Let's admit it: even the odd journalist is occasionally guilty of a little distortion in the interest of winning quick understanding. But this week's Conservative campaign is merely mendacious. Even worse, civil servants were exploited in the exercise. Conservative strategists began by falsely claiming that their costings had the endorsement of the head of the civil service, Sir Robin Butler. Second, civil servants' time and taxpayers' resources were wasted doing silly sums based on foolish assumptions about Labour policies supplied by Conservative politicians. The party of government always has an advantage in the run-up to the election. But this time the Conservatives are abusing that position.

Conservative strategists, led by Brian Mawhinney, seem to think electioneering is a sport in which the party with the cleverest manipulation and the cheapest slogan wins most applause. Wrong. Even in a climate of popular apathy and media bias, parties should maintain a certain level of integrity. We hope voters will closely follow the actions of every political party; certainly we will holler when they overstep the mark, as the Conservatives did this week.

When the Conservatives launched an identical attack on Labour's spending plans before the last election, they had a much stronger case. Labour did indeed plan to raise pensions and child benefit to the tune of several billion. The figure attached by the Conservatives to Labour's plans may have been rather arbitrary, but the general message was plausible enough: Labour wanted to spend more money. But we are in a different world now. For four and a half years (under both John Smith and Tony Blair) iron discipline has been applied. The position is clear: new policies must be paid for within existing resources (or, in a few cases, from the windfall tax). Shadow Cabinet colleagues and party members may have winced along the way, but the prudence has paid off.

Of course the real test of politicians' integrity is not the remarks they make about the opposition before an election, but whether they will deliver on their own promises after one. The Conservatives failed to do so in 1992 - raising taxes after promising to cut them. George Bush did the same in America after 1988. A British party that reneges on its promises this time around risks destroying any credibility its politicians still have with voters. As Blair and Brown well know, if a new Labour government were to spend and tax with abandon after pre-election promises of austerity, it would destroy all hope of re-election.

There is every reason for believing that the Labour leadership will keep just as tight a rein over loose-lipped and loose-pursed colleagues in government as it has in opposition. The more serious problem is that the political fight over tax and spending may tie a future government's hands in reacting to new and unforeseen circumstances. At the moment the public finances remain in a rather dubious state, despite the better-than-expected news on government borrowing this week. If any party gets trapped into promising never to increase the overall level of spending or taxation, or denying that such increases could ever be necessary, then it is making a big mistake. Pretending that everything can always be met within existing budgets is simply dishonest.

The Liberal Democrats at least are prepared to admit as much. Yesterday they cheerfully set out proposals to oppose all Budget tax cuts, and to increase income tax in order to increase spending on education. To the extent that they are facing up to the need for higher investment in certain areas, their approach is welcome. But the Liberal Democrats are going further. They are openly betting that voters actually want to pay higher taxes for better public services, and are willing to vote accordingly.

Sadly, apart from a few commitedly altruistic voters, the Lib Dems are kidding themselves. In spite of all the polling evidence that the public wants more spent on the NHS, most people still believe that taxes, and in particular their own, are too high. Labour has been astute to recognise that and search for more imaginative ways (through the windfall tax) to raise new revenue without having to increase income tax.

In fact, the inconsistencies of public opinion must bear some of the blame for both the restrictive prudence of the Labour Party and the campaigning methods of the Conservatives. If we voters were not so neurotic about the prospect of higher taxes, then our politicians could conduct a more honest debate about the needs of our public services, against our natural desire to spend what we earn on ourselves. Labour would not need to be so restricted in its policy proposals, and the Conservatives would not bother running misinformation campaigns against them. The behaviour of the Conservative Party in the last week has been appalling, but it cannot take all the blame. As voters, to some extent, we get the politics and the campaigning we deserve. The more we turn our backs on this kind of campaign, the sooner politicians will concentrate on what matters.