'Spiteful' class war on Tories splits Labour chiefs

By JAMES CHAPMAN FOR THE DAILY MAIL
Updated:

Chancellor Alistair Darling said he 'didn't care' about Tory leader David Cameron's Eton education

Chancellor Alistair Darling said he 'didn't care' about Tory leader David Cameron's Eton education

Labour is facing growing internal tensions over 'spiteful' class war attacks on the Conservatives.

Chancellor Alistair Darling said yesterday he 'didn't care' whether David Cameron was an Old Etonian and urged his party to focus on policy instead.

Several other senior ministers --including Lord Mandelson, Tessa Jowell and Ed Miliband - are also said to be uneasy about the tactics.

The row comes after Gordon Brown attacked Mr Cameron's privileged schooling for the first time, accusing him at last week's Prime Minister's Questions of drawing up tax policy 'on the playing fields of Eton'.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls - and Tony Blair's former spin chief Alastair Campbell, who has returned to the fray to advise Mr Brown in the run-up to the General Election - are understood to be leading the campaign to portray the Tory leader as a 'toff' interested in looking after his wealthy friends.

They have seized on Tory plans to lift all but millionaires out of the inheritance tax trap as evidence that their priority would be helping the well-off if they win the election.

But Mr Cameron said yesterday he was not at all embarrassed about his schooling. He said of the Labour attacks in a BBC interview: 'It's a petty, spiteful, stupid thing to do.'

Mr Darling, who went to a private school, said: 'I don't care whether David Cameron went to Eton or not. What I do care about is that I think consistently he is making the wrong calls, the wrong judgments'.


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