Major warns of 'ruthless' road to tax cuts

DONALD MACINTYRE

Political Editor

John Major last night warned a party still reeling from the defection of Alan Howarth, MP for Stratford on Avon, to Labour that the Government would have to make "ruthless" decisions about public spending to ensure tax cuts.

In an uncompromising dismissal of a central element in Mr Howarth's farewell attack on the Conservative Party, the Prime Minister recommitted himself to reducing taxes and identified the welfare state as a prime target for cuts to pay for them.

As Brian Mawhinney, the party chairman, led a concerted exercise to limit the damage of Mr Howarth's departure by claiming that it was "yesterday's news", Mr Major told the Tory agents' dinner that few things angered people more than "others living off the welfare state - off taxpayers' money - when they could look after themselves".

Mr Howarth, who said in one of a series of broadcast interviews that the Prime Minister had told him what a "nuisance" his defection had been in their brief telephone call on Sunday night, had condemned in his resignation letter to the Stratford on Avon constituency party cuts in benefit for the unemployed, sick and disabled - and had complained of the Conservative "clamour for tax cuts for the well-off". In one nod to the Tory left-wing agenda promoted by Mr Howarth until his decision to become a Labour MP, Mr Major promised that health and education, along with law and order, would be protected from what he implied would be a concerted effort to drive down public spending elsewhere.

But the rest of the Prime Minister's speech was a clear attempt to appeal to the right and to highlight what he himself called the "clear cut choice" between a Labour Party still "hoping that throwing money at problems will solve them" and the Tories "trusting the people, giving them more power, more choice and more opportunities".

Mr Major had intended to go into greater detail in his speech on policy, but deferred specific announcements until he makes his leader's speech to the conference on Friday on the grounds that they would have been inappropriate while the party was mourning the death of Lord Home, a former Prime Minister. The party conference will begin today with one minute's silence in Lord Home's memory.

Mr Major's tough message on spending will be underlined today when William Waldegrave, a born-again economic dry in his role as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will say that the lower spending as proportion of national income can be driven below 40 per cent the better.

The start to the conference was made even shakier by the announcement yesterday that Tate & Lyle was reducing its contribution to the Tories by pounds 10,000 and giving pounds 7,500 to Labour for the first time.

Sir Edward Heath, another former Prime Minister, last night declared regret that there were sections of the party which had an "absolute mania" about tax cuts. While he sympathised with Mr Howarth's arguments he still believed that he had been wrong to defect to Labour

Conservatives in Blackpool, pages 4 and 5