THE TORY Party's divisions over Europe erupted yesterday after the Defence Secretary, Mr Michael Portillo, insisted that it was "perfectly reasonable" for Conservative candidates to publicly oppose the Government's "wait and see" policy on monetary union.
However Mr Portillo stressed that monetary union was still "some way down the road" and conceded that Tory candidates who ruled out joining a single currency in their election leaflets were still members of a party "whose government has a clear line, which is that this will be considered in due course".
The Labour Party immediately renewed its offensive over the Tory Party's divisions,_with the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, pointing out that a "clear majority" of Tory candidates had declared their public opposition to monetary union. Out of the first 100 published Tory election addresses, 55 candidates had ruled out joining a single currency, he said.
Mr Cook claimed Mr Major was now in a minority position within his own party by refusing to rule out monetary union, and challenged him to pledge that he will not promote any candidate who had publicly contradicted the Government's policy.
"John Major is in danger of becoming John Minor within his own party. The Tory skirmishes over Europe in the past parliament look set to become full blown civil war in the next parliament. . The Tory truce on the single currency has collapsed. Tory MPs are not observing a ceasefire but are using their election literature to fire a shot across the bows of John Major," he said.
But the Tory hierarchy chose to ignore the row, preferring instead to attack the deputy Labour leader, Mr John Prescott, as untrustworthy following comments in a Sunday newspaper in which he allegedly stated; "You can't tell all the truth all the time, can you? No, no, nobody does.
Describing his remarks as the "defining moment" of the election campaign, the Tory party chairman, Dr Brian Mawhinney, said it proved Labour could not be trusted and were prepared to lie to gain power.
"There is no doubt that the danger of New Labour is not just that they are muddled, not just even that they are wrong, but that they are prepared to lie and lie and lie again because they know that if they tell the truth they cannot ever win," he said.
However despite Mr Cook's attempts to defuse the row, claiming Mr Prescott was being ironic, Dr Mawhinney accused Labour of trying to "con" the British electorate.
"This is the defining moment because you have got a man who aspires to be the second most powerful man in the nation flatly contradicting things in public, and in private, expressing in private what he really believes and expressing in public something he believes will con the public into voting for his party," he said.
To add to Labour's embarrassment, Mr John McIntosh, the headmaster of the London Oratory school which is attended by Mr Blair's son Euan, publicly attacked the party's education policies, arguing that they threatened the independence and achievements of grant maintained schools.
However Mr McIntosh also appealed for the school to be "left out of the political debate" but, then criticised the Tory party's attacks on Mr Blair for choosing to send his son there as "misguided".
Although the Labour Party had hoped that the trade unions would remain silent throughout the election campaign, it is now believed several of the leaders intend to confront Mr Blair with a list of their demands this week.
It is expected that among their demands will be the right to strike, a minimum wage, an end to public sector pay freezes and better job protection.