Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin
at this morning's
Tory press conference
Photograph: Andrew Parson/PA
Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin are on stage for a briefing on business. The Tory leader, like Gordon Brown, will address a conference of small business leaders later today, where he will set out the Tories' plan to help British business. This morning's launch reiterates the Tories' opposition to council tax revaluation and Labour's New Deal, and their plans to cut 235,000 civil service jobs and 168 quangos and public bodies.
Mr Howard accuses Mr Blair of "praying that our country will sleepwalk its way into another five years of Labour. If Blair gets in again one thing's for certain – taxes will go up again."
The new announcement this morning is that not only will the Tories scrap this year's revaluation of council tax, they will also scrap Labour's planned rebanding of property price bands. Mr Howard concludes with the melodramatic warning: "If I came up to you in the street, took money out of your purse and threw it down the drain that would be a crime. Well, that's what Mr Blair's government does every day of the week."
