Charles Kennedy has delivered a stinging attack on his political rivals.

In an exclusive interview with ePolitix.com, the Liberal Democrat leader also promised to give Tony Blair and Michael Howard a tough time in 2004.

Kennedy and Blair have been engaged in a series of rows over the Liberal Democrats' spending pledges and the prime minister's tactics came in for strong criticism.

He accused the prime minister of punching below the belt over the party's 50 pence top tax rate.

Kennedy claimed the prime minister had made "total fabrications" out of his party's plans.

"He's deliberately distorting and misrepresenting and I'm not going to let go of this," Kennedy told ePolitix.com.

"I don't mind the prime minister standing up and saying he disagrees with a 50 pence top rate because he thinks it won't work or there's more important priorities or there's a better way of doing things. That's fine and the marketplace - the electorate - can judge who's right and who's wrong.

"What I do object to is coming out with total fabrications about what Liberal Democrat proposals actually are."

Kennedy slammed the prime minister's portrayal of the policy.

"He's talking garbage - and he knows it. He knows better and he should do better," Kennedy said.

"The fact of the matter is that we have made a very specific tax and spending commitment - the 50 pence top rate on every pound above £100,000. That raises £4.7 billion. With that you can take £2 billion to get rid of tuition fees, don't go down the road of top-up fees and reintroduce fair grants."

Kennedy also rejected the idea that a Conservative Party under Michael Howard spelled an end to his party's hopes.

He repeated that Howard's Folkestone and Hythe seat was still a prime target for the Lib Dems.

"Folkestone was always going to be a prime target for us, looking at the trend of results in that seat over several elections. And it remains so. It's nothing personal."

"We will be giving it a lot of attention along with several other seats that happen to be held by leading lights in the Conservative Party because those are seats that have to be in our sights if we are to progress further at the next election," he said.

Kennedy delivered a stinging assessment of the Conservatives with Howard in charge.

"It's exactly the same cast of characters. They've changed positions at the top, at the leadership level, but it's the same group of people that have been with us for a long, long time," he said.

"And they bring with them the same political baggage that has always been there from 18 years in government which was so decisively rejected by the electorate six years ago.

"I really don't think that the public feel that anything dramatic or fundamental has changed in British politics. Politics remains very up for grabs and that's very good news for us."

Kennedy also warned that he will call for a wider inquiry if he considers Lord Hutton's investigation into the death of Dr David Kelly has left questions unanswered.

"A lot depends on how tightly Lord Hutton interprets what was a rather tightly set brief," he said.

"If it's just into the circumstances around Dr Kelly's suicide - assuming it was suicide - then that in our view will not be adequate because we will need a wider-ranging judicial inquiry into the whole basis for war and how the decision was arrived at."

He stood by his party's decision to oppose the Iraq war.

"Without blowing our own trumpet I think we can take a degree of satisfaction - given the issue involved - that the Liberal Democrats in the Commons were the only consistently united party throughout the entire issue," he said.

Kennedy also questioned the decision by Conservative mayoral candidate Steve Norris to take the top job with construction firm Jarvis.

"This will go down like a lead balloon with voters. We all know what the horrific problems have been," he said.

"Somebody can't stand for mayor from such a compromised position as that. I just think it's just totally unsustainable and I think he'll come unstuck."

The Brent East by-election brought the party its 54th MP but Kennedy gave a tough assessment of 2003.

"It's been a testing year. But I suspect next year's going to be even more testing in different ways. I hope it won't involve military conflict, obviously," he said.