Brown 'will be worse for Britain'

The Tory leader said his party offered "hope, optimism and change" and urged the country to wreck the Government's 10-year celebrations at the ballot box.

Elections for English councils, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly - at which Labour looks set to be hit hard - come just a day after the anniversary of Labour's 1997 landslide.

But with Tony Blair preparing to announce the timetable for his departure from office within a fortnight, Mr Cameron concentrated his fire on the Chancellor.

Addressing activists in Swindon, he said: "Things are going to get worse before they get better. Because when Blair goes, Brown comes.

"The darkest hour will be just before the dawn because Brown is the one who has taken away the pensions for the last 10 years, who has done stealth taxes for the last 10 years and who has centralised and spun and helped to undermine trust in our politics. So it may be a new leader but it will be the same old Labour."

He told them: "On Tuesday we will have had 10 years of Blair and Brown and they are going to be celebrating their anniversary. But on Thursday we can tell them what we think of those 10 years.

"Let us resolve, all of us, to get out there and campaign to say that's enough of disappointment, enough of dashed hopes, enough of Blair, enough of Brown; it is time for a government that can bring us hope, optimism and change".

Mr Cameron - whose style often leads to comparisons with a young Mr Blair, insisted that what he offered was entirely different.

And he rejected claims by Mr Blair that he was being equally "misguided" as the then opposition leader 15 years ago in seeking purely community solutions to anti-social behaviour. "We are not here to ape New Labour; we are here to replace New Labour and sweep them away," he said.