Posted on 04/11/2005 10:18:24 AM PDT by jamesissmall218
Labour and the Liberal Democrats attempted to paint Michael Howard as an extreme Right-winger on immigration yesterday amid signs that his policy is winning widespread support.
In what appeared to be a co-ordinated ploy, the two parties accused the Conservative leader of crudely exploiting the issue in order to boost the Tories' chances on May 5.
Last night evidence of a Tory surge was confirmed when a YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph put Labour and the Conservatives neck and neck on 36 per cent. The Liberal Democrats are on 20 per cent and other parties eight per cent.
The poll bore out trends in recent private Labour Party polling which has shaken the party's high command and increased fears that Mr Howard could yet come close to victory.
As he prepared for the launch today of the Tory election manifesto, Mr Howard denied his plans for an annual limit on immigration - to be set by Parliament - and a quota for asylum seekers were "racist".
"It is not racist to want to limit the numbers. It is just plain common sense," he said.
In defiant mood, Mr Howard suggested that he now believed he might prevent Tony Blair securing a third term as Prime Minister.
His party had, he said, made a "great start" to the campaign. "For the first time in many years, we're now in a position to restore principle to government, to stand up for common sense and to put the people's priorities first," he told an audience in Telford.
Mr Howard, himself from a Jewish immigrant family, said Britain had benefited greatly from immigration down the years "both culturally and economically". Many of those who had settled here were a "credit to our community".
But the Government had allowed the numbers to run out of control, with the annual total having tripled to 150,000 since Mr Blair came to power. The hospitality of the British people was being "abused".
"It is obvious to everyone that uncontrolled immigration is putting strain on our public services in some areas," he said.
Mr Howard insisted that taking on the issue of immigration showed he was giving strong leadership and had strong principles.
He said: "Some people say I shouldn't talk about difficult issues like the abuse of our asylum system and those who stick two fingers up to the law. But we cannot make Britain a better place if you aren't even prepared to discuss it."
In unusually strong language, Peter Hain, the Leader of the House of Commons and a former anti-apartheid campaigner, accused Mr Howard of "scurrilous, Right-wing, ugly tactics".
Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader said the Tory policy of capping asylum would lead to "a much crueller Britain".
Speaking on BBC1's Breakfast with Frost, Mr Kennedy said the Tories were scaremongering over immigration in a "destructive way".
Labour is aware that Mr Howard has stolen a march on them by putting immigration at the heart of the campaign.
A YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph last week showed asylum and immigration to be the Tories' strongest issue with 26 per cent more people thinking the Conservatives were the best party to handle the matter than Labour - the largest Tory lead on any policy area.
The Liberal Democrats are keen to prevent the Tories using immigration to damage them, both in their key heartlands of the South West where they are in hand to hand combat with the Conservatives, and in parts of the North.
In a further, stage-managed move, Labour also wheeled out Charles Wardle, a former Conservative immigration minister who was at the Home Office when Mr Howard was Home Secretary, to attack Tory policy.
Mr Wardle, who is no longer a member of the Conservative Party and gave up his Bexhill and Battle seat in 2001 to take up a £120,000 job with Mohamed Fayed, said the Tory leader was descending to "dog whistle" politics which contrasted with "solid detailed progress" under Labour.
Labour insiders denied that they had actively collaborated with the Lib-Dems but said Mr Kennedy's comments were "obviously helpful in highlighting the opportunism of Michael Howard".
Today, the jittery Labour high command will seek to return the election agenda to its stronger suits of the economy and public services. It will publish the education and economy sections of the manifesto before a full launch on Wednesday.
Mr Blair stressed in a speech in his Sedgefield constituency yesterday that education would be "at the heart" of the manifesto.
Both Labour and the Tories will announce their final tax pledges in the middle of the week.
You mean...they're paying attention to what the voters want? How diabolical!
He has my vote. He also wants to reduce the times for abortion and increase funding of the military.
Do you think that there's any chance that the Tories will win, or at least force a hung parliament? From what I understand, they need to get a significantly higher vote total than Labour because of the distribution of their votes throughout the country.
Howard voted for the current abortion law. I wouldn't pay too much attention to what he says, he knows he won't win so can say what he likes without much danger of ever having to put it into practice.
Seriously, I wonder if these leftists even listen to their own rhetoric, or if their mouths are on auto-pilot.
My guess at the moment is a hung parliament or something very close to it. Labour have the edge but only just.
Conventional wisdom says that the Tories need to win by 2 or 3% in terms of votes to hang the Parliament. I'm not wholly convinced by that as I think this time Labour will lose some of the anti-Tory tactical votes that they have had the last two elections. I think that a Labour majority of less than 40 seats very unlikely though...
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