British Opposition leader Michael Howard was accused yesterday of trying to sneak into Downing Street by the back door by hinting that the Tories could not win the general election.
There is growing concern in Labour Party circles about a change of strategy by Howard, who has appealed to people to "send a message" to Prime Minister Tony Blair instead of urging them to vote Conservative.
The Tory leader has warned voters against "sleepwalking" to another Labour Government and even suggested that his party was "2-0 down" at half-time.
Labour claims the "we can't win" approach has been imported by Lynton Crosby, the Tories' campaign director, who has used it in his native Australia.
Crosby's name has even been mentioned in relation to National's election bid in New Zealand, but the party has denied he will be working on their campaign.
In 1995, his Liberal Party urged voters to "send a message" to Paul Keating, the Labor Prime Minister, in a Queensland state election, paving the way for his surprise defeat in a general election the following year.
Yesterday Wayne Swann, the Australian Labor Party's finance spokesman, dismissed claims by the Tories that Howard's "2-0 down" statement was a slip of the tongue.
He said: "It's a deliberate campaign tactic that the conservatives with Lynton Crosby have run time and again in Australia.
"What they say is 'look we can't win this election so just cast a protest vote in selective constituencies. It will be safe because Tony Blair will still be Prime Minister after the election."
"But of course the protest vote gets out of control and what happens in those circumstances is the electorate gets the result that they don't expect."
Blair warned yesterday that the Tory strategy was to try to make sure Labour supporters do not turn out to vote by giving the impression that the Tories were unlikely to win.
He said: "What they want to do is to say to people, look, we are not really going to form the Government, so why don't you just send a message? That strategy employed in Australia delivered a conservative government when people thought there was going to be a Labor one. Their idea is to hold their vote firm and depress ours."
Yesterday the Tories insisted that Howard's "2-0 down" remark was intended to show that his party could win and that his "send a message" statement was intended as a "wake-up call" to voters.
- INDEPENDENT
Election polls
* A MORI poll for the Financial Times yesterday had Labour on 40 per cent, the Conservatives 30 and the Liberal Democrats 23.
* A Populus poll for the Times and ITV News put Labour down one point on 40 per cent, the Conservatives two points lower on 31 and the Liberal Democrats up two points on 21.
- REUTERS
Australian tactics unsettle Blair
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