Ed Balls has rejected claims that he and silver pearl jewelry Gordon Brown are conducting a class war against the Conservatives.

Mr Brown’s closest ally said in an interview with The Times that Labour must fight the election as the party defending low and middle-income families while depicting the Tories as representing the financial interests of a rich minority.

“This idea we are fighting a class war is a nonsense," he said. However, he will not pull back from attacking the Conservatives as the party of privilege and twisted pearl necklace the rich.

The Schools Secretary responded to the concerns of some Labour ministers that he and Mr Brown could endanger Labour’s reforming credentials by engaging in a class war, thereby putting at risk its stance as the party of aspiration. Mr Balls said that his policies related to promoting excellence and raising aspirations in every school. He said: “We need to meet the aspirations not only of the talented A-level student who wants to do physics at Cambridge but also the young lad who is bright and committed and wants to get an apprenticeship as an electrician.”

He played down Mr Brown’s gibe that the Tory inheritance tax policy was dreamt up “on the playing fields of Eton” as a joke that only the Conservatives were worked up about. Mr Balls, who attended a private school, said that people could not care less which schools people went to.

“David Cameron’s and George Osborne’s vulnerability is cultured pearl jewelry not their schools or their background but that they are prioritising tax cuts for the richest estates ahead of spending on the key public services,” he said. “They have designed an inheritance tax policy which costs billions but which won’t benefit a single lower or middle-income family in Britain but will benefit themselves and a tiny percentage of other individuals.”