MPs' plan to win over Middle England voters

Gordon Brown is facing radical demands from senior Labour MPs to 'strike a new deal' with Middle England by cutting fuel duties and ditching bin taxes and other unpopular policies.

Ten MPs - including five former ministers and three serving ministerial aides - set out a series of proposals as Labour agonises over how to rebuild its collapsing support.

Several attacked him over the scrapping of the 10p tax band, warning it had critically undermined Labour's appeal.

Others demanded the overhaul of the flagship tax credit system, which has been beset by fraud and overpayments.

The MPs - many of whom are defending small majorities against the resurgent Conservatives - gave their verdicts on how Labour could regain lost votes to the centre-left think tank Progress.

But with catastrophic by-election results, damaging policy U-turns and rebellions over car tax and detention of terrorist suspects for 42 days, their demands are unlikely to be welcomed in Downing Street.

Former Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart said the 10p tax 'fiasco' demonstrated how a party could lose public confidence if it did something 'against all its stated values'.

'People felt furious, because this is not what Labour is supposed to do. We are not the party of taxing the poor to help the prosperous. In politics, what you do must always be based on your values,' she added.

Cleethorpes MP Shona McIsaac urged the party to appeal to voters in 'the language of the school gates and the supermarket checkout, not party political patois'.

Former transport minister Stephen Ladyman urged Mr Brown to cut fuel duties and ditch plans to apply new green levies on polluting cars.

Dr Ladyman - whose 664 majority leaves him particularly exposed to a swing to the Conservatives - warned: 'Motorists understand the need to raise money from fuel duty but they don't believe the fuel duty escalator and recent changes to road tax are fair.'

Another former minister, Northampton North MP Sally Keeble, said that Labour must direct its appeal not just to traditional working-class supporters, but to 'middle-income Middle England', which worries about mortgage bills, childcare and petrol prices.

Miss Keeble called for a 'radical overhaul' of tax credits and Government support for homeowners who get into trouble with mortgage repayments.

She said: 'The tax system provides the most powerful means of convincing this new electorate that we're on their side.'