BRITAIN:SENSING HIS party is on the verge of a landmark victory, Conservative leader David Cameron has mocked prime minister Gordon Brown's absence from the Crewe and Nantwich scene of today's crucial byelection.
In Commons exchanges again dominated by the 10p tax issue, Mr Brown said Mr Cameron knew very well of "the convention that prime ministers don't go to byelections".
But the Tory leader hit back with a reminder that Mr Brown's predecessor, Tony Blair, had broken that convention in the name of "leading from the front". By contrast, Mr Cameron alleged, Mr Brown had retreated to his Downing Street "bunker" instead of explaining his tax policies to the voters of Crewe and Nantwich.
The government's abolition of the 10p starter tax has played heavily on the doorsteps there despite last week's £2.7 billion (€3.4 billion) mini-budget compensation package targeted at four of some five million pensioners and low- and middle-income workers disadvantaged by the tax change introduced last year in Mr Brown's last budget as chancellor.
Mr Cameron challenged Mr Brown to say if he would extend the emergency package of higher tax thresholds into the next financial year following yesterday's report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies claiming that 18 million families will be worse off by an average of £3 a week in the run-up to the next general election unless the chancellor, Alistair Darling, finds more than £3 billion to do so.
As Mr Brown sidestepped the question, Mr Cameron said it was clear last week's announcement had been a "one-off, one-year-only change" and accused the prime minister of perpetrating "one tax con after another".
Ministers and Labour MPs again poured into Crewe and Nantwich on the last day of campaigning in a desperate fight to save the late Gwyneth Dunwoody's 7,078 majority. But bookmaker Ladbrokes stopped taking bets on the outcome after the Conservatives' Edward Timpson became "unbackable" at 16/1.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg also appeared to accept that his party - famous for its byelection breakthroughs - is not in serious contention in the Crewe contest. Whereas Mr Brown and Mr Cameron fought to make a last impression on voters in their exchanges over tax and low-paid workers and their parties' respective records, Mr Clegg surprised commentators by using his two opportunities at prime minister's questions to ask Mr Brown about the British mission in Afghanistan.
Labour MPs will be nervously awaiting the Crewe result in the early hours of tomorrow morning.