War of words begins with row over tax

Local elections: Labour and Tories start campaign with bid to prove other is most costly to live under

Labour and the Conservatives yesterday launched their local election campaigns with the traditional war of words over tax and spending in a contest for 3,000 councils seats that is likely to see the Tories pushed even further into third place in local government.

Brain Mawhinney, the Conservative Party chairman, revived the traditional Tory theme that "Conservative councils cost you less" using figures for the six councils where the Tories remain entirely responsible for local taxes to argue that Labour authorities charge pounds 225 more, on average, for a Band D property and the Liberal Democrats pounds 139 more.

Labour hit back using average council tax figures - a fairer reflection, Labour claims, of what people actually pay - to argue that the Labour average is pounds 513 against pounds 536 for Conservative councils and pounds 567 for the Liberal Democrats. With steep increases in the council tax pencilled in for the next two years - the equivalent of almost 2p on the standard rate of tax on Labour's calculations - the party launched under the slogan "The Tories hit you where it hurts".

With both Labour and the Liberal Democrats anticipating gains, Tony Blair, the Labour leader, said his party's success on 2 May "will bring forward the day when we can finally rid the country of this tired, discredited government" replacing it with one "with the ideas and energy to get this country going again".

Mr Blair said the issue was "ultimately about trust", with Labour already trusted to run more councils than ever before - 200 - compared with the 14 the Conservatives still control.

He hammered home Labour's partnership approach with the private and voluntary sectors, citing the Huddersfield McAlpine stadium, Labour's education innovations in Birmingham, and North Tyneside's child-care programme which has won it contracts to run services from Brent, north-west London, as ways the new Britain is "already being built".

As Labour pointed out that average council tax increases have come in at 6.3 per cent against the Treasury's assumption in the grant settlement of 8 per cent, John Gummer, Secretary of State for the Environment, argued that Tory groups had proposed lower increases in many areas.

"While Mr Blair was holding out the prospect of tax cuts, his councillors were busy raising taxes and undermining the Government's tax cuts in the process," he said.

Mr Blair replied that the Government's budget plans would force up local tax bills next year and the year after. "It is a con trick which we will expose in this campaign. On taxation, the Tories are giving with one hand and taking with the other".

Gillian Shephard, the Secretary of State for Education, stepped up the row over selection, attacking the pledge made by Trafford council in Manchester to examine how to make its six grammar schools non-selective if, as expected, it turns its minority Labour control into full control on 2 May.

That, she claimed, would reverse the decision of parents at Altrincham Boys' Grammar, one of the best performing schools in the country, which opted out this month. Beverley Hughes, Trafford's leader, said half the children in parts of the borough received a grammar school education against only six per cent in more deprived areas. That was "something that must be examined" when the council's priority was "quality education for all our children" not just the 30 per cent with grammar school places.

Parties' policy

battleground

CONSERVATIVE

Aim to double living standards over next 25 years and claim

party has "returned to our

natural tax-cutting agenda".

Vouchers for all four-year-olds from April next year, extension of selection in secondary schools. t New legislation to let grant-maintained schools borrow.

Highlight falling crime figures and extension of closed-circuit television in city centres.

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

Renewed pledge to spend

extra pounds 2bn on education.

Campaigning for extra 3,000 bobbies on the beat.

Promise of consultation on

local spending priorities, more

local democracy, more powers for neighbourhood, town and parish councils.

LABOUR

Stress on public/private

partnerships, citing

Manchester's Metro and

Birmingham's International Convention Centre as evidence that "Labour gets things done".

Aim to raise standards in schools, citing Birmingham's baseline assessment of school children and its Children's

University.

Pioneering consultation

projects to listen to local views, including Ipswich's use of interactive TV and

Edinburgh's interactive

technology system.