Former Prime Minister John Major made his first foray into the Conservative election campaign in Sussex with an attack on Labour's "spin and deceit".

He said Labour's "swollen majority" had made it intolerant of criticism and he accused John Prescott of behaving like a "street corner delinquent" rather than a Deputy Prime Minister when he punched a demonstrator who threw an egg at him.

Among a sea of Keep the Pound signs at the Metropole Hotel in Brighton last night, Mr Major did not mention the Euro.

That was left to his more Euro-unfriendly successor William Hague, who started and closed his keynote speech with a plea to save the pound.

He said: "Don't let anyone tell you that this election doesn't much matter. Don't let anyone try to claim that all the parties are the same.

"This election matters because it is the moment when Britain chooses between being an independent nation and becoming part of a larger European bloc."

As Mr Hague and Mr Major attacked Tony Blair and Mr Prescott, Labour launched one of their own with a poster blitz depicting the Tory leader's face superimposed on a picture of Lady Thatcher.

Mr Major, applauded warmly by the invited audience of Sussex Conservatives, chose instead to criticise Labour deceit and warned the country appeared to be "sleepwalking to catastrophe".

He said: "The Labour party has carried spin far beyond gloss and towards bare face deception. Their skill is to take a part truth and twist it beyond any acceptable meaning."

Mr Major was particularly scathing of the way Tony Blair and Labour reacted to Mr Prescott's punch.

"Labour spun that famous punch brilliantly - but am I alone in believing that Mr Prescott's response was more that of a street corner delinquent than a Deputy Prime Minister?

"'He acted by instinct,' said Labour. Yes he did. But it was the sort of instinct that lands young football fans in trouble. 'He didn't look,' said Labour. How lucky for him that the egg thrower was not a woman or a child or someone elderly.

"And what did our Prime Minister say? 'John is John,' he said. A pathetic line that will, no doubt, be favoured by the best friend of every punch-first, think-later hooligan around the country.

"And this from the Prime Minister who promised: 'Trust me, I'll be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.' But then, of course, Tony is Tony."

He said class sizes were not generally lower, young offenders were not dealt with more speedily, and NHS waiting lists had been "massaged down by the ingenious trick of not letting many patients on to the list in the first place".

"And only the modern Labour Party would have stooped so low."

May 30, 2001