The Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, declared Labour ready to fight the general election yesterday, as pressure built on the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, to name the day.
The Shadow Chancellor, Mr Michael Portillo, condemned Mr Brown's budget "con" and insisted Conservatives would match Labour commitments on health and education spending, while finding £8 billion in savings for tax cuts.
And the Liberal Democrats echoed the Conservative charge of government "triple counting", with their spokesman, Mr Matthew Taylor, charging: "The reality is that stealth cuts have succeeded stealth taxes. It is absurd that Labour claims to be investing in public services but it is spending a smaller proportion of national income than the last Tory government."
However, Mr Brown basked in post-budget glory yesterday as a survey of London voters showed a 50 per cent approval rating for his Budget while the influential Sun newspaper rushed the press fences to be the first to declare for a second Labour term.
"It's in the bag, Tony - you might as well call the election now," rang the paper's headline yesterday above a front-page editorial urging: "Tony Blair should clear the decks and call the election. He should do so quickly. For it is now crystal clear, after Gordon Brown's budget, that the election is in the bag. And furthermore the Sun says `Blair gets our support for a second term'. "
While the paper had long been expected to back Labour again - despite its strong opposition to British membership of the euro - Mr William Hague will still have been shaken to read: "And what about the Conservative Party? Truth is: the Tories are quite simply not ready. We respect William Hague. In October 1998 we called the Tories an `ex-party' and pictured Hague as a dead parrot. But he had fought back - with a fierce determination and good humour that might still get him into 10 Downing Street one day. We gave him a chance. But, truly, we cannot endorse a Hague-Portillo team up against Blair-Brown. Who could?"
If he wants to, Mr Blair will have the opportunity to dampen the building election fever today when he addresses his party's Scottish conference in Glasgow.
However, the Chancellor was unmistakably on an election footing yesterday as he toured the television studios insisting Conservative pledges to keep spending in line with economic growth would wipe between £10 billion and £16 billion off Labour's plans for investments in public services.
"The next stage of discussion in this country is about choice," said Mr Brown: "It is between a balanced approach which involves targeted tax cuts and good public investment as against huge cuts in public spending which inevitably lead to boom and bust which is the old Tory recipe."
Directly challenging the Tory plans the Chancellor continued: "They cannot make those cuts without cutting deep into vital public services. Mr Portillo must explain which schools and hospitals and how many doctors, nurses, teachers and police officers he would cut."
However Mr Portillo said Mr Brown's budget "spin" was already unravelling and insisted proposed overall spending was actually £5 billion less than the Chancellor had promised in his pre-budget report last November.
"So there isn't any extra money," said Mr Portillo: "He [Mr Brown] is, as usual, trying to con people." Mr Portillo - still tipped by some as a possible successor to Mr Hague should the Tories lose the election badly - claimed spending on health and education would in fact rise by just £300,000 each year.