Campbell embroiled in row over 'sinister' Labour tactics

BRITAIN: The Conservatives have claimed that Mr Alastair Campbell's return to Mr Tony Blair's election team has seen the adoption…

BRITAIN: The Conservatives have claimed that Mr Alastair Campbell's return to Mr Tony Blair's election team has seen the adoption of "sinister and underhand tactics" by Labour.

Mr Campbell, who has returned to the front-line as Labour's head of strategic communications, was embroiled in a row yesterday over a four-letter-word e-mail outburst directed at BBC journalists.

And Conservative cause to fear Labour's "Sultan of Spin" was dramatically underlined as a new opinion poll showed Labour's support already at its highest since the end of the Iraq war.

At the same time Mr Campbell's propensity to "become the story" was also on display after he accidentally sent an e-mail to BBC 2's Newsnight programme suggesting they should "f*** off you t***s" after it had probed his role in Labour's controversial internet poster campaigns, dropped last week after they drew charges of anti-semitism.

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Realising he had not been responding to a party colleague but rather to a Newsnight staffer, Mr Campbell subsequently messaged the programme saying the original message had been sent in error, and describing it as "a silly fuss" while suggesting the programme's "star presenter" Jeremy Paxman would have seen its funny side.

However, the incident put further pressure on Labour to explain who devised the posters, one of which depicted the Conservative leader Mr Michael Howard in an image reminiscent of a Shylock or a Fagan, while another portrayed Mr Howard and Shadow Chancellor Mr Oliver Letwin, who is also Jewish, as flying pigs.

The Newsnight investigation came after claims in the London Evening Standard that Labour's advertising agency TBWA was blaming Mr Campbell for the posters.

Mr Campbell's fresh spat with the BBC followed a warning to the broadcaster earlier this week from Mr Peter Mandelson, Britain's European Commissioner and former Labour minister, that it should steer away from "demonising" the former Downing Street communications director.

Mr Mandelson warned the BBC that attacking Mr Campbell had brought it trouble before. This was a reference to the Hutton inquiry.

Labour's confidence was boosted yesterday by the Populus poll for the Times of London, showing the party's support above 40 per cent for the first time since April 2003, with the Conservatives well ahead of Labour on only one of 12 key policy issues - immigration - of concern to voters.