CONSERVATIVES and Liberal Democrats last night scorned Mr Tony Blair's declaration that Labour was now the party of low taxation in Britain.
As the Conservatives prepared to launch a fresh poster campaign depicting "New Labour, New Taxes", Mr Blair and the shadow chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, told business leaders their goal was a basic tax rate of 10p or 15p.
Amid signs of a sustained swing by Britain's managers to Labour, Mr Blair told a conference for 400 of the country's leading business men and women: "There will be no return to penal tax rates."
And Mr Brown told the special conference in London: "It is our long term objective to have a new lower starting rate of tax of 15p, or preferably 10p in the pound - that is in contrast to the Conservative objective of simply abolishing inheritance and capital gains tax."
But Mr John Major, on a campaign swing through Manchester and the north west, derided Labour's promise, saying: "The day the Labour Party become tax cutters you will hear cats bark and not before."
The Chancellor, Mr Kenneth Clarke, said the scheme would cost billions of pounds and undercut the enterprise economy. And Mr Alex Carlisle, for the Liberal Democrats, said Labour was promising to maintain services within a framework the Tories had been unable to sustain.
Mr Michael Jack, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, later claimed Labour's tax cutting plan would cost £8 billion. He insisted Labour had not costed the plan, which he described as "irresponsible and dangerous".
Business leaders gave the new Labour strategy a cautious welcome. A CBI spokesman said it would be "churlish" not to admit Labour had made major policy shifts to accommodate the concerns of the business community. "We do recognise that the Labour Party has made significant efforts to understand business concerns and has shown shifts towards what business wants which is a sound macroeconomic policy."