UR TV CAST

But we are wary of making guarantees to people precisely because we do not want to repeat the mistakes Mr Major made in the last election.”He added that he was also wary because “we are going to inherit a situation where the public finances are in a very, very poor state …”But of course a 10 pence starting rate of [income] tax would help [ordinary families] and I think if we possibly can help them we should.” He said that if there was scope for tax cuts under a Labour Government, that is where it would be done.Windfalls ripe for the pickingKenneth Clarke set out a menu of options for Labour tax increases yesterday, but some of them would do just as well for a Tory Chancellor as a Labour one. Here is a list of choices facing a government of any complexion wanting to raise extra revenue.Restrict personal allowances to basic rate pounds 1.9bnRestrict pension tax relief to basic rate pounds 1.3bnAbolish married couple’s allowance pounds 2.8bnAbolish mortgage interest relief pounds 2.4bnAbolish exemption of child benefit from tax pounds 700mAbolish exemption of incapacity benefit from tax pounds 550mExtend VAT to private education and health pounds 1.5bnIncrease corporation tax rate by 1 per cent pounds 650mCut rate of advance corporation tax credit by 1 per cent pounds 250mEnd tax exemption of first pounds 30,000 redundancy pay pounds 1.3bnExtend VAT to rent on domestic dwellings pounds 3bnExtend VAT to rent on commercial properties pounds 1.3bnExtend VAT to betting, gaming and Lottery pounds 700mExtend VAT to domestic passenger fares pounds 1.45bnExtend VAT to international passenger fares pounds 1.2bnExtend VAT to children’s clothing pounds 800mExtend VAT to water and sewerage services pounds 900m. John Major will make himself the message tonight with an election broadcast aimed at winning back doubting Tory voters. The election broadcast was filmed last night at Downing Street by the Prime Minister who curtailed a day of campaigning in the Midlands and the North-east to begin a media blitz.
The Prime Minister’s broadcast which will go out tonight will be in sharp contrast to Labour’s “Tony Blair: The Movie” – screened last night. The script was agreed by the Prime Minister after talks with Lord Saatchi late on Wednesday night during a return flight from Scotland.”Our strategy is to show what it could be like under a Labour government. It is part of a big media push,” said one senior Conservative source.The Prime Minister will underline his warnings that a Labour government would threaten prosperity and sign up to a federal Europe – two issues which Tory strategists believe have been making wavering supporters think again in the final days of the campaign.It will be followed up by the Prime Minister in a series of television interviews on Sunday, the BBC Panorama programme on Monday, and Radio 1 on Tuesday.Tory party strategists believe Labour will enter the final week of the campaign by changing the emphasis to the “rewards” of a Labour government, focusing on their five pledges including taking 250,000 young people off the dole.That strategy was set out in Labour’s “war book”, but the Tories are keen to use Mr Major’s personal popularity to persuade the “don’t knows” to turn back to the Tories.Mr Major privately concedes that he wished he had been able to speak more directly to more people but he continued to insist yesterday that the message on the doorstep was different from the polls.He is refusing to give up in the face of expected defeat, as he did in 1992, although he is clearly looking as though the long campaign has taken its toll on his reserves of energy.He toured the Jaguar plant in Coventry with his wife, Norma, to underline the economic changes which have taken place since the days of Red Robbo and demarcation disputes.

He sat behind the wheel of a Tory blue XK8 sports car costing pounds 56,625 but Mrs Major, who drives a Rover, said: “John doesn’t earn enough to buy a Jaguar.”If he loses next Thursday, that may change.Mr Major has not been allowed to drive a car since becoming Prime Minister in November 1990, for security reasons, but he may be given new freedom to do so if the Tories are forced into opposition.He may also soon be able to afford the Jaguar.Close friends have predicted that after delaying standing down to prevent an unseemly scramble for the leadership, he may go back to the City, possibly returning to his former career in banking.It is possible he could still plays an important role, even out of office, in the development of a single currency. Executives at Siemens have made it clear they support the single currency and Jaguar executives were also in favour of the “wait and see” approach.Bibiano Boerio, the finance director of Jaguar, said: “From my personal perspective, it’s probably something you need to keep shaping and managing.”I’m a fighter and if you have an idea where you want to be, it’s best to be involved and to help shape it.”. Tony Blair will be targeted for an intensified attack by Tory party leaders in the final push for the last seven days of the general election campaign. Tory strategists privately say they have identified Mr Blair as one of the key targets, in order to undermine Labour’s election campaign and restore confidence in floating Tory voters.
John Major will step up his assault on Mr Blair’s U-turns over policy, including Scottish devolution, but will leave the more personal attacks to leading spokesmen,such as the party chairman, Brian Mawhinney.The personal attacks on Mr Blair, which have included advertisements showing the Labour leader as a ventriloquist’s dummy on German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s knee, have caused outrage but Tory strategists believe they are striking a chord with voters.”We are finding in our polls that people are increasingly concerned at Blair’s changes of policy He looks tetchy under fire.

We think he is frightened by the prospect of office and we are confident that the contrast between Major and Blair is going to damage Labour,” said one Tory source.”There is a growing feeling that we are hitting home when we compare Steady John against Slippery Tony. We are appealing over the heads of the media and it is getting home to the people on the streets.”The campaign, which will intensify over the weekend, with no let-up by Mr Major on Saturday, will also focus on what the Tories claim is the “spiral of silence” by Labour over its economic plans, including a proposed June budget. They will attack Labour for failing to show where the money is going to come from to plug the alleged pounds 1.5bn black hole in Gordon Brown’s plans.The economy has been the main theme of the Conservative campaign, with the slogan “Britain is Booming”. Tory strategists believe the message is beginning to have its effect on the opinion polls but will also link it to evidence of widespread Euro-scepticism.Mr Major will attack Mr Blair for threatening to give away British sovereignty at the same time as risking more job losses “We are going to go on Europe, Europe and Europe. Europe is big and doing us well,” said the source.Conservative tracking polls showed the gap with Labour fell from 11 to six-and-a-half per cent at the start of the week, after heavy attacks on Labour over Europe.

Mirroring the ICM poll in the Guardian, the Tory tracking poll showed Labour’s lead had slipped to five points, which the Tory strategists said had raised morale at Central Office: “We feel that we can really do it now.”Mr Major continued to play down the polls yesterday and said it was too early to say what the result of the election would be. But he warned: “The election on the doorstep will be very hard fought.”Although he has professed his confidence that he will win, Mr Major said yesterday: “I don’t think anyone can predict with any certainty what the result will be.”Last night, he launched the final push by staking his hopes for victory on a twin attack on Mr Blair over his approach to Europe and the Scottish parliament. In spite of Cabinet splits over Europe between Kenneth Clark and Michael Howard, Conservative strategists believe the voters have discounted the disunity factor and that their Euro-sceptic message is sinking in.ENDS/Sharon. The Liberal Democrats have beaten the Tories into third place when voters are asked which party has “run the most effective campaign so far”, according to a MORI opinion poll, writes John Rentoul. In direct contrast to media commentators’ view that Tony Blair has fought an uninspiring and error-prone campaign, 36 per cent of those surveyed said Labour had run the best campaign. Labour was well ahead of the Liberal Democrats on 13 per cent, who pushed the Tories into third place on 11 per cent.
The findings of the poll, carried out on Tuesday this week for the Times, are also at odds with the trend in party support in the polls over the five weeks of the campaign so far.

Labour’s average level of support has fallen slightly from just above 50 per cent when John Major called the election in mid-March to just below 50 per cent now.But Paddy Ashdown’s greater exposure during the campaign seems to have helped lift the Liberal Democrats, who have seen their poll ratings rise over the past five weeks. The average Tory poll rating has also risen slightly during the campaign, despite voters giving Mr Major’s campaign a big thumbs-down.Again contradicting most commentators, who have been impressed with the Prime Minister’s bold and personal appeal to the nation, fewer voters are impressed by the Tory campaign this time than were five years ago. Comparing the figures with those published on 30 March 1992, at the same stage of the last election campaign, suggests that Mr Ashdown is in fact doing worse than last time. In 1992, the Tories came in third on 13 per cent, but the Liberal Democrats were named by 28 per cent, only just behind the 31 per cent naming Neil Kinnock’s second and more stilted Labour campaign.This time, much of the media’s attention has been taken by Mr Blair’s uncertain start to the campaign.