Blair rounds on Conservative campaign
Prime Minister Tony Blair rounded off Labour’s most intensive day of campaigning so far by rounding on the “nasty and unscrupulous” Conservative campaign.
Cabinet ministers were campaigning in Scotland, Yorkshire, the East Midlands, Wales and London, while Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott took his bus to the North West.
Mr Blair and Health Secretary John Reid began the day by outlining Labour’s plans for community hospitals and launching a national petition to oppose Conservative plans to introduce charges for hospital operations.
Following the Conservative admission that they had produced a misleading MRSA leaflet, Mr Blair said: “It is a nasty and unscrupulous campaign and it is descending into increasing desperation as time goes on.”
Conservative Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley hit back, denying that the Conservatives planned to introduce charges into the NHS. “The arguments put forward by Labour are wrong. There is no question of the Conservative Party introducing new charges into the NHS,” he said.
But later in a speech to his Folkestone and Hythe constituency, Conservative leader Michael Howard apologised for the misleading leaflet on MRSA: “We sent out a letter and it referred to the MRSA rates in the local hospital trust when it should have referred to the local hospital trusts,” he said. “And that was a mistake and I’m very sorry we made that mistake.”
Elsewhere, Scottish Liberal Democrats’ leader Jim Wallace deputised for Charles Kennedy in carrying the campaign to Inverness, Kyle of Lochalsh and Fort William.
The Welsh Liberal Democrats launched their mini-manifesto on the Welsh language, while back in London, Liberal Democrat candidates highlighted the party’s policy on scrapping tuition fees by sailing from Westminster to Greenwich.
The Scottish National Party concentrated on highlighting sites that have been earmarked as potential nuclear waste dumps. SNP leader Alex Salmond said: “The Government should rule out these sites. Scotland should not have to pay for Labour’s nuclear madness.”
