Rebels subvert two-party campaign

Leaders watch their backs as parties head for election

Any doubt that Britain is already in the midst of the longest, most hotly- contested general election campaign on record was stripped away last night by the disclosure that Labour leaders are planning to hit back at the Tory "lie machine" with a poster campaign in holiday resorts from Blackpool to Malaga.

Although the election may not come for another 10 months, the two parties are attempting to cover up their own divisions with thunderous summer and autumn attacks on one another.

Though John Redwood denied in New York last night that he was planning an alternative Tory manifesto, he made it clear that there would be no let-up in his campaign to press John Major onto a more right-wing agenda.

Meanwhile, the Labour leader Tony Blair, who completes his reshuffle today, may be ready to remove the whip from one of his dissidents, in an attempt to reassert his authority over the left-wingers after they complained of dirty tricks in the Shadow Cabinet elections.

Ken Livingstone, the Labour left- winger, should receive a warning today from the Chief Whip, Donald Dewar, telling him to stop spreading lies about Labour colleagues, after he claimed that Irene Adams had been forced by leadership "intimidation" to withdraw from the Shadow Cabinet elections - a charge she publicly denied.

Mr Livingstone ignored earlier warnings not to rock the boat by condemning "massive, bone-crunching pressure" placed on MPs not to stand in last week's Shadow Cabinet elections. But Brian Wilson, a member of the party's campaign team, attacked those he said were indulging in the sort of anti- leadership activity seen in the early Eighties.

British holiday-makers may be dismayed to find they cannot escape the campaigning even as they head for sun and fun on the beaches in Spain, Greece and Portugal. Labour however is deadly serious in its attempt to dispel the impact of the Tory "New Labour New Danger" poster campaign which has extended to Labour strongholds across Britain.

The Tories are spending an estimated pounds 10m on their 10-month poster campaign, with the prospect of no let-up until polling day. They are using 1,291 sites across Britain, including 411 in London, 102 in Scotland, 189 in the north west, 190 in the Midlands, 132 in Yorkshire, and 41 in East Anglia.

Labour MPs in safe seats have been alarmed to find their constituencies targeted.

Labour "spin doctors" privately admit that the Tory campaign may work, by slowly softening up the electorate to regard Tony Blair as "dangerous", unless the campaign is countered. Labour is preparing to unveil its own posters, to warn holiday-makers in seaside resorts around British shores and the Mediterranean that when they get home, the Tory "lie machine" will still be operating.

"The Tories have only one negative strategy and that is to scare people into fearing Labour," said one Labour strategist. "We have got to ensure that we are able to present the positive message in the manifesto, New Labour New Britain. Parallel with that, we have got to nail the Tory lie machine."

The strike on the London Underground, which again disrupted the capital yesterday, enabled the Tories to criticise Labour leaders, who fear the Tory propaganda could get worse. "If things get really difficult for them, and they are still struggling in the New Year, they may try to precipitate a crisis to blame Labour."

Negative campaigning, borrowed from American presidential elections, will not work, Labour believes, so long as the Tory internal feuds continue over the economy and Europe.

Mr Redwood, on a speaking tour of the US, yesterday denied he planned to issue a manifesto, but confirmed: "I will continue to contribute to the debate on taxation, Europe, and the unsuitability of Labour to govern." There are plans to issue a Redwood pamphlet, before the Tory Party annual conference, which will challenge Mr Major's "wait-and-see" approach to the European single currency - an approach also thrown into question yesterday by the cross-party Commons select committee on Treasury affairs.

Both Mr Major and Mr Blair have been warned that whoever forms the next government, the timetable for a single currency cannot be avoided, and they will have to deal with it before the end of 1997. But Mr Major's problems over Europe are infinitely greater than Mr Blair's, partly because the rift in the Tory Party is more fundamental, but also because the combatants on the Tory side have their sights set on the next leadership election. Some senior Tory MPs are already privately discussing campaign teams for a leadership election after a general-election defeat, and whether Mr Redwood, Michael Howard or Michael Portillo would be the best challenger from the right against Stephen Dorrell and Kenneth Clarke from the left. With personal campaigns coming closer to the surface, Mr Major has little hope of securing unity in his party.

Any move by the former Tory leadership challenger to publish an alternative manifesto would be "an act of extraordinary pretentiousness and disloyalty", Quentin Davies, the ardently pro-European Tory MP, said on BBC radio.

Donald Macintyre, page 13