Personal and business tax cuts will be unveiled by the Conservatives in any autumn general election campaign, The Times was told yesterday, as poll fever began to run out of control.

George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, said that he would follow up his proposals to slash inheritance tax and stamp duty for first-time buyers with more populist measures. Money raised from new green taxes would be used “pound for pound” to fund personal tax cuts.

They are expected to include more measures to encourage marriage. The business package will include a cut in corporation tax, paid for by revenues raised by simplifying the system.

He refused to be drawn on specific pledges but said that he had a “good idea” of how much he had to spend on personal tax cuts if Mr Brown calls an election next week.

“We will use the money we raise from any environmental taxes to reduce taxes pound for pound elsewhere,” he said in an interview with The Times. “We have established the idea of a ‘family fund’ which would make sure that this money is ring-fenced so every penny will be used for tax reduction.”

The disclosure that more tax cut pledges are on the way will give another boost to the Tory conference which David Cameron will end today by calling for an early general election. He knows that he may have as little as four weeks to show the country that he can match the leadership strengths of Gordon Brown.

The Conservative leader will try to make the speech of his life, amid growing expectations that Mr Brown may next Tuesday call an election after rushing forward his three-year spending plans and possible taxation promises.

In an atmosphere of heightening tensions between the parties Mr Brown was accused of playing politics with the Armed Forces after making a whistlestop trip to Iraq and announcing that 1,000 British forces would be home by Christmas. It emerged later that the departure of 500 of them had already been announced.

It was also revealed that he has asked the Treasury to be ready with the Comprehensive Spending Review and PreBudget Report for publication next Monday or Tuesday if he decides at the weekend to go for a general election on November 1. If the PBR goes ahead there will be speculation that the Government may counter Tory tax pledges by holding out the promise of future action on inheritance tax.

According to close allies Mr Brown will make his decision this weekend. If he opts for a November 1 poll he will make his statement on Britan’s future in Iraq on Monday and the CSR/PBR could come on that day or Tuesday, which is the last day he could dissolve Parliament for an election on that date.

Increasing the sense of clearing the decks, Mr Brown has brought forward the promised health service review by Lord Darzi to tomorrow, and a key statement finally giving the go-ahead for the London Crossrail project is expected on Friday.

Mr Brown has still to make up his mind and will be awaiting anxiously the outcome of public and private polls later this week to see whether Mr Cameron has made big inroads into his lead. Labour strategists accept that Mr Brown will “take a hit” if he draws back from an election after allowing speculation to soar throughout the conference season.

Mr Osborne told The Times: “He’s left us in this position where either we have had more advanced notice of when a general election is going to be than almost any opposition have had in recent times, or he bottles it.

If the election is off, then he’s got a lot of explaining to do as to why he’s spent the last couple of months engaged in political posturing rather than getting on and running the country.”

The Times has ascertained that one argument that will be used if he does not go ahead will be that Labour will use the months before a possible May election – believed to be Mr Brown’s original plan – to try to “blow a hole” in Tory economic plans, particularly the claim that the inheritance tax cuts can be paid for by levying charges on nondomiciled residents in Britain.

Mr Cameron will speak to a Tory party whose morale is much higher after a successful week than it was last weekend. He will try to paint Mr Brown as the “old politics” and ask the voters to opt for the Conservatives and a “politics you can believe in”.

Describing himself as an optimist, Mr Cameron will say that if people are given power and opportunity over their own lives they will do the right thing and make themselves and society stronger. “I want to change this country from one where the state gets bigger and bigger to a country where everyone has the oportunity and power to get on in life and get on with life.”

He will assert that he is leading a new Conservative Party with new priorities. “There’s only one directon for me and that’s forward to the future.”

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