It is the town, above all others, that would be a city.Its suburban light-show was the opening shot in Croydon's pounds 6.8m "Skyline Project", which promises to culminate in the construction of the controversial pounds 500,000 "Tower of Light". This 164ft "21st-century sun-dial" is a mast of steel and billowing fabric sails, designed by the architect Clark Geddes, which will sail over the town centre.Not everyone is convinced. This was to have opened in 1995 and then 1998, but is unlikely to be completed until at least the turn of the century.By this you will have gauged that Croydon is an ambitious sort of town It is. Croydon has become less car-minded and, despite problems raising the necessary pounds 180m, is hoping to build an ambitious 18-mile European-style tram network to relieve local traffic congestion and to make Croydon the epicentre of south suburban London. When Croydon was rebuilt in the Sixties, under the direction of Alan Holt, the undivertible borough engineer, it became a showcase of motorway-age culture and infrastructure. Stark and voluminous sub-Manhattan office blocks rose at high speed above fast urban dual-carriageways.

Overpasses, underpasses, roundabouts and municipal car parks followed one another as surely as night followed day in this most ambitious of all suburban towns. Last month, the evening skyline of downtown Croydon was flooded with a rainbow of bright electric light - "the most adventurous building lighting scheme ever staged in a British town" it proclaimed - as part of a policy that began perhaps three years ago of brightening up the town and preparing for a change in its status. One reason may be that Labour has a much younger membership, with an average age of 43 compared with an estimated 62 years of age for the Tories.. Almost exactly a hundred years ago, Mrs Bridget Driscoll was knocked down and killed by a Roger-Benz automobile. This new-fangled mechanical nasty was beetling through the outskirts of Croydon at the legal limit (4mph) and poor Mrs Driscoll became the very first of half-a-million Brits culled by the motor car. In retrospect, Croydon seemed an appropriate setting for this novel Victorian tragedy, for few English towns have been given over so promiscuously to the car. Figures show that of members paying the full fee of pounds 15 per year, around half the total membership - which is projected to go over 400,000 by the end of the year - 57 per cent are in households earning pounds 20,000 or more and 30 per cent are in households earning pounds 30,000 or more.Comparable estimates of Conservative Party membership is that 45 per cent earn pounds 20,000 or more. No opera singers were affected by the disease.Glyndebourne, the favourite opera house of society figures, politicians and corporate bankers, is known for its formal "black tie" dress code and for the lavish champagne picnics which appear during the interval on the lawns outside the auditorium.The building stands in the grounds of a stately home in East Sussex and is an unlikely setting for an outbreak of TB - a disease traditionally associated with poor living conditions and abject poverty.Dr Angela Iveson, public health consultant at East Sussex Health Authority, said yesterday: "Nobody there has TB at the moment, but we are making absolutely sure that the contact-tracing is complete.".

DONALD MACINTYRE Political Editor Labour yesterday accused the Tories of a "disgraceful" smear campaign after it was disclosed that right-leaning commentators in the US had been sent a list of the Labour leader's alleged "un-American activities" since he entered politics in the early 1980s.The move appeared to underline Tory anxieties that in contrast to Neil Kinnock's ill-starred trip to Washington before the 1987 election, Mr Blair's carefully planned visit to New York and Washington this week, culminating in talks with President Clinton at the White House, is likely to receive favourable media attention both here and in the US.Labour condemned the move as a "pathetic stunt" which breached the protocol that British politicians do not attack each other abroad.Conservative Central Office said it had merely borrowed a well-worn Labour tactic to provide sourced quotes for people "who are curious about how he has voted and why".The paper - headed in an echo of the notorious McCarthy congressional committee in the 1950s "The Labour Party's Un-American activities" - rehearses fairly routine, if heavily partisan and selective, charges against Mr Blair.These include accusations that he had, for part of the 1980s, been a member of CND, had criticised the US bombing of Tripoli in 1986, and had attacked the US's "evil campaign" against Nicaragua and elsewhere in Central America as late as 1988.The paper appears to have made little impression on US commentators, with one Wall Street Journal editor reportedly describing it as "juvenile".The document relies partly on guilt by association and points to the existence of the "secretive" left-of-centre supper club - which, it says, includes five members of the Shadow Cabinet and which was opposed to the Gulf war.In fact, Mr Blair - like Neil Kinnock, the then Labour leader - was strongly in support of the Allied liberation of Kuwait, though the document does not make that point.It argues that both Mr Blair and his wife Cherie were "anti-nuclear and anti-American" in 1983 when they joined the Labour co-ordinating committee which subsequently became a "soft-left" vehicle for combating Bennism in the party.Labour claimed yesterday that if John Major had authorised the document then it indicated he was prepared to put party politics above his own relationship with President Clinton.But Brian Mawhinney, the Tory party chairman, said: "If Mr Blair is so ashamed of the things he has said, will he now withdraw them?"New Labour research suggests that the party's membership is now more middle class than that of the Conservatives. A total of 256 members of the public and 228 members of staff were evacuated. The cause of the blaze is not yet known and the cost of the damage is still being assessed.. Four fire crews were sent to the 29-storey building in Park Lane to tackle the blaze, which damaged a suite and caused smoke damage to six other floors. Hundreds of staff and guests were evacuated from London's Hilton Hotel yesterday after a fire on the 22nd floor. This incident won't affect us at all."As far as we're concerned it was a routine health and safety initiative," the spokeswoman added.The TB cases were all members of the theatre's seasonal staff, working only during the summer months when the theatre is open. Tests have shown that no one else has the disease," she said."The season will open as expected on 17 May.

The local health authority demanded that more than 200 members of the opera house staff be tested for TB last week after five employees contracted the disease in three years. A Glyndebourne spokeswoman insisted the scare had not thrown the company into disarray."The five TB cases we have had are all completely in the clear now, and all are back at work."The testing was something the health authority recommended as a precaution. They are not promising more money for education until after they have formed a government and seen the state of public finances.By contrast, the Liberal Democrats say they will spend an extra pounds 2bn on education and, if necessary, put a penny in the pound on income tax to pay for nursery education, better buildings, more books and more support for teachers.. Glyndebourne, one of the most prestigious opera houses, has fallen victim to a tuberculosis alert, it emerged yesterday. There are plans for all schools to compete with roads and housing for government "challenge" funding, with priority given to those which have raised some money from private sources.Labour plans a new partnership between private and public finance under which groups of schools would borrow money from financial consortia.