Major taunts Labour over crime record

Bitter attack on 'hypocrisy'

John Major last night stepped up a calculated Tory attack on Opposition "hypocrisy" over crime in the face of gibes from Labour's leaders that the Government had descended "into the gutter" by branding them the "villain's friend".

In exchanges which presaged a prolonged and potentially vicious general election campaign, the two parties conducted a day-long war of words over what both sides see as the key political battleground of law and order.

Hours after Tony Blair, the Labour leader, had accused the Government of "sinking into the gutter", the Prime Minister, undaunted, launched his onslaught with a litany of law and order measures brought in by his Government and opposed by Labour.

Mr Major's attack, in a speech to the Conservative Political Centre last night, came after furious Commons exchanges earlier in the day. John Prescott, Labour's deputy leader, accused ministers of "abuse, innuendo, and slurs", and Michael Heseltine, the Deputy Prime Minister, said Labour's self-projection as tough on crime was "a classic example of hypocrisy".

The Tory battle to open a new front and regain its traditional territory of law and order showed every sign of being a co-ordinated effort - in the wake of the Cabinet's meeting on political strategy last week - to capitalise on signs that Labour's opinion poll lead on the issue may have been curbed by recently improved crime figures.

Although Labour remains ahead on an issue with which the Conservatives led through most of the 1980s, MORI opinion poll figures suggest that the lead on law and order narrowed from around 10 to 6 per cent between September 1994 and July of last year. The Tories are as determined to close the lead as Labour are to widen it.

Ministers are already aiming to put Labour on the spot with their White Paper on minimum sentences for violent and sexual offences, which Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, intends to publish before Easter with a view to introducing a Bill in the autumn - and quite possibly a Second Reading before the general election.

Labour has made it clear it will not decide its position until the White Paper has been published, although spokesmen have made it clear that the sentencing proposals do not address the problem that - in the case of sexual crimes - offences have risen while the numbers of those convicted have not.

Labour last night countered by pointing out that Mr Howard had voted against a Labour proposal in 1988 to ban the sale of knives to juveniles - a proposal which the Government made clear last week it is now likely to enact.

As senior Tories said that the police had not then been in favour of such a ban, Mr Howard said he had always been ready to review law and order measures "in the light of changing circumstances". Mr Straw said Mr Howard was "wriggling" over his U-turn.

The Prime Minister mocked Labour for having abstained on the last Criminal Justice Act - which gave the police new rights to stop and search, new court powers to clamp down on bail bandits and allowed for drug testing in prisons.

He added: "Day by day Labour show themselves in their real colours. And the colour they reveal is not soft focus blue. It's the colour of envy and hypocrisy."

Referring to the forthcoming sentencing proposals, he said: "I believe most people will support this approach. They will see it as fair. And so do I. You might have thought this would be common ground without opponents. So would I, but we would be wrong ... No matter what they say they persistently do something else."

Yesterday Mr Blair, campaigning in Hemsworth, West Yorkshire, declared: "It debases public debate in this country to say that Labour are supporting the criminals. I will not engage in that type of politics. I do not intend to get into the gutter with Mr Major and his Cabinet."

Gordon Brown, the shadow Chancellor, accused Mr Major of taking the political "low road", while Donald Dewar, Labour's Chief Whip, said the Government was acting as if it was the Opposition while Labour unveiled new policies.

Mr Blair, meanwhile, amplified Labour's education policy with a speech warning of a "Blade Runner" scenario, typified by "ghettos of low opportunity."

Tory fire, page 2