Speak of the devil

Tory high command resolute in campaign to demonise Blair

The Tory high command defiantly maintained its campaign to demonise Tony Blair yesterday, with Defence Secretary Michael Portillo suggesting that the Labour leader was unfit to govern because he plan-ned to "tamper" with the monarchy.

Using the most tenuous possible evidence for his claim - a Fabian pamphlet written and published by a couple of alleged Blairites - Mr Portillo said: "This pamphlet confirms New Labour's desire to tamper with the monarchy."

He said Mr Blair had already denounced the hereditary principle, albeit in relation to House of Lords reform, and added: "New Labour should be warned that they meddle with the monarchy at the nation's peril. Trendy discussions around Islington dinner tables are no substitute for centuries of constitutional fine-tuning."

The Conservative strategy of opening up a full-scale attack on Mr Blair was last night causing unrest among the more squeamish Tory backbenchers - and it was openly attacked by the Bishop of Oxford. The Rt Rev Richard Harries said: "Vilifying members of other political parties is a puerile exercise and when that vilifying draws on satanic imagery it is not only silly but potentially dangerous. "As the election draws near, I hope all parties will resist the temptation to go in for personal abuse and dirty tricks and concentrate on some of the important issues the country needs to consider at this time."

Tory sources dismissed the bishop's complaint, saying the poster showing Mr Blair with burning eyes was not intended to appeal to the "sneering, so-called intellectuals of Islington", but was a graphic way of making a point.

There is every indication that the Tories are adopting the US electoral approach - of going all-out for the man - because Labour's lead is based on the perception of Mr Blair's honesty and trustworthiness. Peter Mandelson, one of Labour's campaign managers, wrote in last night's London Evening Standard: "Tony Blair is a practising Christian and, by any standard, a man of decency and integrity. Whatever you think of his political views, to portray him as the devil is a crass, clumsy move. Nobody thinks he is evil and dangerous and Tory MP Sir Teddy Taylor this morning said he thought it was a mistake to go for the man in this way."

Mr Mandeslon said the Tories had descended to the current level of political campaigning because they had nothing positive to say about themselves; the mud of gutter politics might stick, as it had done in the United States; and because "they feel more threatened by the appeal of Blair's re-born party than they have felt about Labour for more than a decade and a half".

As Labour had become less and less easy to attack, he added, the Tories had become more and more desperate in their approach.

Mr Portillo said earlier, however, that the Tory strategy was working, and he defended the use of the controversial "New Labour, New Danger" poster.

"We have applied the symbol of the red eyes - which stand for danger - to Tony Blair in order to make the point that behind the smiles and the soundbites there are policies which are deeply dangerous to our country," he said.

Certainly, the nature of Labour's response suggests that the party is not taking any chances of letting the hard-hitting Tory campaign sink in with the electorate. Every word, every move is being carefully tracked and answered.

At a press conference on the "shameful greed" of the water industry bosses yesterday morning, a paper was circulated about the views of another lowly candidate on the monarchy. Instead of the Labour candidate who had written for the Fabians, the party produced the words of the Conservative candidate for St Albans, former Treasury adviser, David Rutley. Mr Rutley wrote in the mainstream Tory publication Crossbow some years back that he believed the monarchy should be put on some form of performance-related pay which could be based, in part, on the number of handshakes they delivered.

Driving home the party's response to the equally unimportant Fabian pamphlet, Labour frontbencher Frank Dobson delivered a prepared statement to yesterday's press conference.

"Tony Blair has consistently expressed his great admiration for the job that the Queen does on behalf of us all," he said. "There is no prospect whatever of a Labour government seeking to alter the political role or status of the Queen in any way."