TONY BLAIR will face down charges of “lying” by trying to keep the spotlight on Conservative public spending plans today. He will claim in a speech to the Welsh Labour conference that Tory plans to spend £35 billion less than Labour by 2011 would mean an average £50 million loss to constituencies across the country.

The Prime Minister will attempt to maintain the Budget offensive despite a faltering launch yesterday of a claim central to Labour’s campaign: that the Conservatives will “devastate” the public services by their stated ambition to reduce Labour’s spending plans by £35 billion over six years.

First, Mr Blair became involved in a heated exchange with ITN at a morning appearance with Gordon Brown to publicise a new poster campaign attacking the Tory plans. Pressed on how he could refer to the Conservative proposals as cuts when the Tories were really intending to increase spending at a slower rate, an increasingly frustrated Mr Blair said the figure was a cut when compared with Labour’s plans.

“They’re saying they’re going to spend £35 billion less — go and ask them how they can spend £35 billion less and not end up affecting frontline public services, because it can’t be done,” he said. Asked whether the poster claims were untrue, Mr Blair retorted: “It is a choice. We are saying that we want this money to go into public services. You question me as to whether they have got a plan to spend £35 billion less — why don’t you ask them?” Oliver Letwin, the Shadow Chancellor, riposted that Labour’s posters were “a desperate attempt to deflect attention after people saw the flaws in Labour’s vote-now, pay-later Budget. Tony Blair is rattled and wants to distract attention from the fact that he will put up taxes if re-elected,” he said.

But the claim by Mr Blair, and later by Alistair Darling and Alan Milburn at a second press event, that £35 billion was equivalent to sacking every teacher, GP and nurse, produced a sceptical reaction and hostile exchanges between ministers and reporters, the latter asking how Labour could make that charge when the Tories were talking of a timespan extending to 2011-12.

Mr Darling was also challenged to point out the difference between Tory plans to freeze spending levels in some departments and Labour’s pledge to do the same when they arrived in power in 1997. “There is a world of difference between what we set out to do in 1997 and what they set out to do,” he said. “The Tories are not talking about holding to the levels they inherit, they are talking about reducing the levels,” he said. “If you say you are going to start freezing, then you have to start cutting.”

Mr Darling refused to put a figure on Labour’s spending in 2011 for the purposes of comparison. “What we’re showing is the difference between them. It’s not meaningless, it is taking Oliver Letwin at his word.”

He was referring to Mr Letwin’s remark in November that “our plans provide the ability over a six-year period for us to be spending about £35 billion less per year in the sixth year than Gordon Brown’s plans provide for”.

Liam Fox, the Conservatives’ co-chairman, called Labour’s press conference “the most preposterous start to any campaign of any party”.

Mr Letwin said: “We have said we will be spending more, year on year over and above inflation. And to call that a cut is at best a misrepresentation, at worst a downright lie.

“There will not be a cut by a single nurse, a single doctor, a single teacher. Smear and fear is what new Labour is about. It is their tactic to set up a big lie and repeat it.”

Michael Howard said there would be no cuts to frontline services. “We are absolutely confident that through cutting out waste and cutting out unnecessary spending and giving people value for money, we will be able to spend at least as much as Labour does on schools and hospitals over that period of time and on other frontline services.

“So let’s have a proper debate based on an honest difference and based on the facts.”

Labour sources said last night that the party would continue to attack Tory plans. Mr Blair will say: “The choice is whether we go forward with investment to improve the public services for every hardworking family in Britain or back to Tory cuts, neglect and underinvestment.”

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