Milburn: Has Howard in his sights

Alan Milburn has issued an angry denial of claims that Labour is mounting a smear operation against the Conservatives.

As Labour supporters prepare to gather for the party's spring conference next weekend, the campaign manager refused to apologise for a series of attacks on the Conservatives.

"It is important also to recognise that elections are not a referendum but a choice between competing parties and competing philosophies," he said in a statement on Sunday.

"We have to campaign not just on our own record and our own policy agenda for the future, but also the record and agenda of our opponents."

Milburn went on to dismiss Tory criticism of Labour's pre-election campaign strategy.

"It is important we all understand the game being played by the Conservatives and their media supporters," he told supporters.

"It is to seek to render illegitimate totally legitimate campaigning.

"It is to seek to label our campaign as negative – which it is not – so that they can then justify what will be the most negative campaign ever seen in this country, directed very personally at the prime minister."

"It is also to seek to deflect us in our determination to ensure the public know the reality of Mr Howard's Tories, past, present and future."

Labour's campaign supremo said it is perfectly legitimate to raise issues such as Howard's involvement in the poll tax.

The intervention came in the wake of media reports predicting the dirtiest election campaign in political history.

Labour has been accused of using the new Freedom of Information legislation to access papers relating to the Tory years.

Major claims

Milburn also denied that Alastair Campbell had played any part in publicising claims that John Major attempted to suppress the release of official documents related to the Black Wednesday currency crisis.

"People should know that Alastair Campbell... had nothing whatever to do with the Freedom of Information requests that have become the subject of a good deal of media comment," he said.

"John Major has accused Alastair of being involved in the request for papers relating to Black Wednesday.

"Mr Major, and his BBC interviewer, and those Sunday newspaper reporters who wrote up the story, know for a fact that the request came from the Financial Times.

"But they will not let the facts get in the way of an attempt to undermine our campaign."

Double negative

Milburn also suggested that the Conservatives were set to harness the techniques of Australian strategist Lynton Crosby to target Tony Blair.

"Every election I have known repeats this pattern of the Tories accusing Labour of dirty campaign methods as a way of justifying the negative and personalised campaign they then fight," he claimed.

"The recent fuss over posters on this website and the Tory record are designed to create the pretence that these are somehow the same as the kind of negative and personalised campaign the Tories' Australian-led campaign team are planning.

"Our response must not to be stoop to their level. It must be to continue to be professional, focused and disciplined.

"To fight on our record, and on theirs. To fight on our policies for the future, and on theirs."