Election `97: Tories focus on tax in last-ditch attack

In a last-ditch attempt to put the frighteners on the electorate, the Tories are planning to refocus their campaign on taxation and Labour's alleged threat to increase taxes in a July Budget - the Tories' secret weapon in the 1992 election.

Senior Tories were infuriated by the prediction by Edwina Currie, the former health minister, that the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat, and there was a concerted effort to rubbish her views.

Speaking on Sky TV, Sir Marcus Fox, chairman of the Backbench 1922 Committee, dismissed Mrs Currie as a "loose cannon, firing in all directions ... never hit the target once."

Those close to John Major said he could not be blamed for election defeat after fighting a tenacious campaign. "He has done all he could. He cannot be blamed," said one of his close allies. His friends believe he will emerge with credit, having been let down by a party suicidally divided over Europe.

Brian Mawhinney, the Tory Chairman, issued a clear message - "don't panic" - to Conservative Party workers in the face of weekend opinion polls showing there could be a Labour landslide.

The campaign will continue to highlight Tory claims that Tony Blair will "sell out" to a federal Europe at the Inter-Governmental Conference in Amsterdam, in spite of the risk that it will remind voters of the deep divisions in the Tory Party.

In a whirlwind tour of the UK today, John Major will highlight what he claims is the Labour threat to the Union. Tony Blair will also be attacked by the Tories, whose polling has shown that the Labour leader is still not trusted by wavering Tory voters.

Dr Mawhinney said Mr Blair's reassurances to the Labour left in The Observer that he would be a "radical" prime minister gave the lie to the image that Mr Blair was "a nice Middle Englander".

But the Tory attack is switching firmly back onto the economy for the final days of the campaign in an attempt to win back wavering Tory voters, who are threatening not to vote or to switch to Labour.

Tory strategists were still claiming last night that in spite of the opinion polls, their private canvass returns are similar to 1992, and reveal 30 per cent of the voters are "don't knows". But there will be no advertising blitz.

The Tories believe they can still avert defeat by targeting the voters who swung behind the Conservative Party in the last days of the 1992 campaign with the same taxation threats.

Labour will be focusing on what a fifth Tory term may bring to maximise their vote.

At an election press conference, Michael Portillo, the Secretary of State for Defence, claimed that the shadow Chancellor, Gordon Brown, had a fully worked out secret tax raising budget which he planned to hand to Treasury officials on Friday if Labour won.

Mr Portillo, one of the leading Euro-sceptics in the Cabinet rejected as "rubbish" a report that his own Tory leadership campaign was already up and running.

John Redwood, the former challenger for the leadership, has been ultra- loyal in his backing for the Tory election campaign and has ordered his friends to focus on the general election, and not to engage in speculation, even off the record, about the leadership race.