CONSERVATIVE LEADER David Cameron has combined a renewed call for an early general election with a warning that Britain's economic problems will worsen if prime minister Gordon Brown delays until next year.
"The future of the economy under Labour is written in the past," declared Mr Cameron yesterday in a keynote speech attacking "Labour's debt crisis and extra borrowing", which he claimed would lengthen and deepen the current recession.
"This year should be election year," insisted Mr Cameron: "Not just for local councils and the European Parliament, but for the whole country. The whole country should have the opportunity to vote for change, because we need change now and waiting another year and a half - well, it just makes this country's problems worse."
The longer Labour stayed in power, Mr Cameron claimed, the worse it would get: "The longer they're in, the worse it gets. Labour are part of the problem, not part of the solution."
While acknowledging that Mr Brown does not need to call an election before May next year, Mr Cameron also asserted: "There is some good news. Labour can't hang on forever. Change is going to come."
Mr Cameron put Tory MPs on election alert when he addressed them just before the Christmas recess, suggesting Mr Brown might be tempted to face the country as early as late February. For all the display of public impatience, however, some senior Tories believe Mr Cameron's strategy is to discourage Mr Brown from an early contest.
Mr Brown has accused the Conservatives of "revelling in things going wrong", while insisting his focus remains the economy rather than the timing of an election.
Mr Cameron deepened the dividing lines over economic policy with his pledge to scrap taxes paid by basic rate taxpayers on savings interest, and to raise the level of permitted non-taxable income for pensioners by £2,000 per year. He made this commitment in the context of a promise to help turn Britain from a culture of "spend, spend, spend" to "a save, save, save" and "less materialistic" society.
At the start of what could prove a long "phoney" pre-election campaign, Mr Cameron also promised that the Conservative economy would be "more green, more local, more family friendly, less arrogant about what central government can do, and more optimistic about what we can all do for ourselves if we work together . . . in a spirit of social responsibility".