Out on the stump with sharpened knives

The council elections campaign belatedly flared into life yesterday as John Major launched a highly personal attack on Labour over possible reductions in child benefit and Paddy Ashdown staked a claim to be the true voice of middle England.

With Labour poised to consolidate its position as the unchallenged leaders in control of Britain's councils next Thursday, the Prime Minister and the Liberal Democrat leader both went on the stump in what Mr Ashdown's party called a "head to head" for the "hearts of minds of middle Britain".

Mr Major projected himself as the champion of aspiring lower-income groups in a passionate attack on putative Labour plans for taking away child benefit for parents of 16- to 18-year-olds. "I left school at 16 because we could not afford for me to stay at school," the Prime Minister said in a speech at Rugby, Warwickshire.

Accusing Gordon Brown, the shadow Chancellor, of trying to "display a touch of virility" by announcing that the party was considering cutting child benefit, Mr Major said it would deprive parents of pounds 560 a year for each child - the equivalent of "an increase of 5p in the pound on the standard rate of income tax".

Although Mr Brown has said that any cut in child benefit for 16-to 18- year-olds would be used to retarget resources to lower-income groups, Mr Major made considerable play of the impact it would have "in inhibiting youngsters whose parents have modest incomes going on to further education".

He declared: "Most families have two children, often with only a couple of years between them. You will get a rolling effect that dwarfs any tax changes we have seen for generations."

As most of Mr Major's fellow Cabinet ministers launched a concerted attack on the Liberal Democrats - easily the second biggest party after Labour in local government at present - Mr Ashdown concentrated his fire on a Tory party which he claimed had "comprehensively lost the trust of the British people" and Labour which was "not being honest enough to gain it". He declared that in towns such as Walsall and Birmingham in the Midlands "you'll find the Labour Party doesn't listen either."

Mr Ashdown said: "The Tory party is not only incompetent, it has totally lost touch with British values of fairness and decency. No government this century has been more out of touch." But he also claimed: "No one trusts Labour because they've got an appalling past record on tax and won't come clean about their present plans. So from both Labour and Tory we get timidity and tax dodging when what the British people want is truth and transparency."

Meanwhile, Mr Major ran into trouble on a walkabout in Nuneaton yesterday when he was interrupted by a local resident as he chatted with members of the public in the town centre. Brian Hazelwood demanded: "John, when are we going to tell the French what to do?" As Mr Major seemed on the point of replying, Mr Hazelwood claimed he was considering supporting the Tories, but added that the French and Spanish were "walking all over us".

Mr Major, also tackled by Mr Hazelwood over the beef crisis, said Britain was trying to work for a negotiated settlement. "If people strike attitudes, the people who would pay the price of that would be the beef farmers," he said.