Brown washes hands of 'class war' by-election campaign as angry Harman is no-show in Crewe

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They criticised tactics that have included activists dressing up in top hat and tails and a stream of attacks on the Conservative candidate as a "Tory toff ".

The retreat came as Labour MPs in London and the South-East complained the campaign, echoing Eighties-style hatred of the well-off, was damaging the party's support among the capital's middle classes.

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Class war: Labour supporters in top hat and tails mock the Tory candidate in Crewe last week

Today Cabinet minister Harriet Harman pulled out of joining Labour activists in Crewe after criticising her party's tactics at the weekend.

Labour's deputy leader, educated at private St Paul's Girls' School and whose aunt was the Countess of Longford, decided at the last minute not to travel to the North-West. < p>Her officials stressed that she had a meeting on procedural elements of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. But senior Conservative Eric Pickles said: "Harriet Harman made clear at the weekend that she was uncomfortable with the Labour campaign. Their nastiness has disgusted people in Crewe and Nantwich."

Attacks on Conservative candidate Edward Timpson, a barrister, have included a picture being doctored to make him appear to be wearing a "Lord Snooty" top hat, mockery of his "£1.5 million mansion" and false claims he owns "exotic llamas".

An MP close to the Prime Minister said: "People here think it is a great shame that something that started off as a sort of stunt has been allowed to dominate the campaign. By making it a central issue in leaflets, it has become characterised as some sort

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Tamsin Dunwoody with her mother Gwyneth - whose death led to the Crewe by-election

of class war. We have a good candidate with good credentials but none of that is getting through any more." Labour's candidate, Tamsin Dunwoody, is the daughter of late MP Gwyneth Dunwoody, whose death triggered the contest.

One senior London Labour MP said of the campaign: "It has been juvenile and counter-productive and if they think this has played badly in the north of England, that's nothing to the way it looks to people in the South and London who thought class warfare was a thing of the past. Down here people do not hate those who are better off - they aspire to join them."

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Odd couple: Brown's allies distanced him from the 'class war' campaign while Harriet Harman was a no show in Crewe

Mr Timpson comes from the shoe business family and went to the more modest Uppingham public school in Rutland. One Labour leaflet stated: "Tory Boy application form: Do you think that regeneration is adding a new wing to your mansion?" As well as the doctored picture, it claimed he had llamas in his garden.

A Labour spokesman in the byelection team denied that the campaign had flopped locally. "It has been a success on the doorstep and has obviously rattled the Tories," he said. "The main point is that Tamsin Dunwoody understands local problems and Edward Timpson does not."

But a poll by ICM for the News of the World found the Tories had doubled their advantage in Crewe and Nantwich over the past week, with 45 per cent of constituents planning to back them, compared with 37 per cent for Labour

Liberal Democrat elections chief Lord Rennard said: "Labour's campaign is in complete disarray. It's looking like they've thrown in the towel."