UK opposition rules out tax cuts as bids for power

BOURNEMOUTH, England, Oct 1 (Reuters) The leader of the opposition Conservatives, laying claim to the centre of British politics as he bids to oust Tony Blair's Labour Party, ruled out fighting the next election on a promise of tax cuts today.

David Cameron's pledge, as he prepared to make his first speech as leader to the Conservatives' annual conference, could lead to a clash with right-wingers in the party, which has traditionally supported tax cuts and restrained state spending.

Since becoming the party's fifth leader in nine years last December, Cameron has boosted the Conservatives in the polls, giving them hope they can bounce back from a crushing run of three successive election defeats at Blair's hands and win the next general election, expected in 2009.

Aiming to win back middle-class voters who abandoned the party in 1997, he has ditched right-wing policies backed by the Conservatives' long-serving prime minister Margaret Thatcher and accepted that most Britons prefer Blair's recipe of spending more on public services such as health and education.

''I'm going to go into (the next) election saying ... No unfunded up-front tax cuts. We won't be making promises that we can't keep,'' Cameron said in an interview with BBC television before the start of the four-day conference in the wind-swept English south coast resort of Bournemouth.

As the economy grew, he said he would share the proceeds between public spending and ''giving us a competitive tax system.'' With the Labour Party preoccupied by infighting over who will succeed Blair when he steps down within the next year, political analysts believe the Conservatives have a chance of winning the next general election, or at least of depriving Labour of a majority in parliament.

Polls show most Britons prefer Cameron to finance minister Gordon Brown, Blair's likely successor.

CRITICS But Cameron's stress on pro-environment, ''family-friendly'' policies has angered some right-wingers in the party and critics accuse him of failing to come up with specific policies.

The Conservatives have consistently led Labour in polls since May, although a poll in The Daily Telegraph yesterday showed the parties neck-and-neck and said a majority of voters did not know what the Conservatives stood for.

A poll in the Sunday Mirror showed the Conservative lead falling to a single point.

The Conservatives reject being rushed into announcing policies, saying a policy review is under way.

Cameron said that, if elected, he would keep the ''good things'' that Blair had done since he swept to power in 1997.

The Labour government decision to give the Bank of England freedom to set interest rates had been a good move, Cameron said.

''We'll keep it. In fact we will try and enhance it.'' He said the Conservatives had been wrong to oppose the minimum wage, introduced by Labour in 1999, and said the Conservatives should keep it if they returned to power.

Cameron said he would not bring British troops home from Afghanistan and that British forces had to remain in Iraq while the Iraqi government wanted them there.

In a move to show the Conservatives have friends abroad, US Republican Senator and likely presidential candidate John McCain will speak at the conference later today while Nicolas Sarkozy, conservative frontrunner for next year's French presidential election, and Fredrik Reinfeldt, winner of Sweden's recent election, will send video messages.

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