Hague issues poll challenge at Blair

Tory leader William Hague today challenged Tony Blair to call a snap poll, declaring: "We have shown the British people beyond doubt we can win the next election."

Tory leader William Hague today challenged Tony Blair to call a snap poll, declaring: "We have shown the British people beyond doubt we can win the next election."

Mr Hague told his party's conference: "We're ready for it now, go on Tony - call it."

The Tory leader told the gathering of representatives in Bournemouth: "New Labour was not a philosophy, it was a fashion, and nothing is more unfashionable than a fashion that's out of fashion."

In a deeply personal appeal to floating voters Mr Hague promised: "I'm in it for you."

He went on: "What will bring this Government down is its arrogant contempt for the views of real people."

Mr Hague also used the occasion to wade into Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Government declaring: "It's only ever been an act, and he's the biggest actor in town."

Mr Hague said that after years of trying to control the unions, it had been back to "beer and sandwiches" at Labour's Brighton conference.

"Throughout this week we have shown the British people beyond doubt that we can win the next General Election.

"We're ready for that election whenever Tony Blair dares to call it."

He derided New Labour as a "fashion" which had now become "unfashionable" and added: "We saw them last week, divided, arrogant and out of touch.

"What a bunch they are - this soap opera of a Government.

"No ministers in recent times have lost touch so rapidly with the people who elected them.

"Cocooned in Whitehall they have retreated into a world where they never have to make do with a failing school or witness a crime or pay for a tank of petrol.

"It is fundamental to their decline that they have betrayed and forgotten the real people of this country.

"And it is fundamental to our recovery that we have become the champions of the commonsense instincts of the people of our country."

Mr Hague promised the conference he would put £5.50 on every state pension and £10-a-week on pensions for older citizens.

He added: "We're going to match Labour penny for penny on the NHS and sweep away Labour's dogmatic opposition to private provision. We're going to make sure every penny is spent on clinical priorities."

Mr Hague went on to repeat his declaration that young workers could opt out of the state pension and make their own arrangements, adding: "The British people know these things can be done and we're going to do them.

"For we're ready to govern for all the people. We're going to govern for all the law-abiding people of this country who have sometimes felt there wasn't a politician left prepared to champion their common sense values and instincts."

He added: "It's time we halted the march of political correctness."

Mr Hague told representatives he was ready to order a crackdown on crime, with the end of early prison release schemes for rapists and burglars and muggers and the controversial plan outlined by shadow home secretary Ann Widdecombe on Wednesday for stepping up the war against drugs.

The Conservative leader promised: "We are going to reclaim the streets from the drug dealers and the car thieves."

Mr Hague roused supporters, telling them: "This has been the best, the most upbeat and the most successful Conservative conference in years.

"This week the people of Britain look to us to see if we are ready for Government. And with the policies we have represented and the purpose we have demonstrated, we have shown beyond doubt that this shadow cabinet, with its breadth of vision and its depth of talent, is the best team for Britain."

He delivered his personal message saying: "People now look to us ... they want to know what motivates me."

Speaking alongside a video presentation, Mr Hague told his audience: "Come with me to the Rother Valley, to the heart of South Yorkshire. See Rotheram, the industrial town I was born in. Visit Wath Comprehensive, the school that gave me a chance in life.

"Come and meet the people I grew up with - children of proud mothers who struggled with small budgets, who relied on the local health service, and who hoped for a better life for their sons and daughters. Children of fathers who worked hard in mines and on farms and in steel works, who never knew the security of owning a home or saving for a pension ... these people, the children I grew up with in South Yorkshire, want the same things as their parents did.

"They want security and stability for themselves and their families. They want a better life for their own children.

"Don't think that because they holiday in Tenerife and not Tuscany that they don't have aspirations for a better life. Don't think that because they've moved to Ilkley and not Islington that their voice can be ignored."

On Europe, Mr Hague declared: "This Labour Government is taking us down the road to a European superstate ... now we must champion the cause of a flexible, free trading low tax, lightly regulated Europe."

Acknowledging a limit to his ambitions, Mr Hague said: "I don't promise the earth. I don't think we'll solve every problem, I don't think we'll avoid every mistake, I won't try to start new fads or fashions, I won't claim to be creating a new era.

"I just want to govern with the common sense instincts of the people of this country."

He promised: "I just want to bring to a people so deeply disillusioned by its Government a party that understands their concerns, a party that shares their values, a Government that believes in our country, a Conservative Government, ready to govern for all the people."

Mr Hague declared: "These people, the people I grew up with, the mainstream people of this country, are the people who motivate me.

"And these are the people we will govern for. We will govern for hard working families. We will govern the people of every community and background.

"We will govern for the mainstream that New Labour has ignored. We will govern for all the people."

Mr Hague accused New Labour of losing touch with hard-working families.

He stressed: "I say to hard-working families everywhere: I know that you are looking at our party and judging whether we are ready for government.

"You know that we are tough on crime and I tell you this: no government in recent times has been as tough on criminals as we will be.

"You know that we want to reduce taxes and no government in recent times has been as committed to cutting taxes as we will be.

"You know that we believe in Britain and no party will stand up for the rights and independence of our country with as much resolve and fortitude as we will."

Mr Hague said a Tory government will direct its energies to improving schools that are the most hopeless, bringing life to inner city areas that are most bleak, helping the least well off pensioners, tackling drug problems, addressing family break down in dislocated communities and improving health care for the most dependent on the NHS.

Mr Hague said: "And it is because we are ready to do all these things that the message coming loud and clear from this is that we are ready for government."

Mr Hague told the conference a Tory government would give more money direct to schools, saying that £540 a year more for every pupil would flow from by-passing local bureaucracy.

He also promised that Tory government would endow the universities, create Free Schools determining their own admissions policies, toughen discipline and ensure schools were not penalised financially for excluding disruptive pupils.

The Tory Leader promised to protect the public services. "We're going to govern for the people who rely on the state pension and the National Health Service and think everyone should share in the growing prosperity of our country."

Mr Hague said the Government had lost the confidence of pensioners.

"The Government seems confused at why pensioners are angry. But the reason is simple. Pensioners don't like being treated with contempt by people like the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party who said they were all 'racists'."

Mr Hague insisted: "Our pensioners should be treated with dignity and respect."

He said Tories would consolidate the Labour Government's "gimmicks" - a reference to measures such as free TV licences and the winter fuel payment - and put that money into the basic state pension, giving every pensioner £5.50 a week more ranging up to £10 a week extra for older pensioner couples.

On health, Mr Hague promised: "We're going to match Labour penny for penny on the NHS and sweep away Labour's dogmatic opposition to private provision."

Mr Hague promised an end to "the march of political correctness", mocking education ministers for supporting a ban on musical chairs on the grounds that it encourages aggression in children and the Government's much mocked body image summit.

On law and order, Mr Hague said a Tory government would restore what he called Labour's cuts to police numbers, end the early release scheme for some classes of prisoner, step up the war on drugs, make prisoners do a full working day and "overhaul the law to make sure that it is on the side of the people defending their homes instead of the criminals breaking into those homes".

Mr Hague promised: "We are going to give full force to the commonsense instincts of the British people and we're going to win the war against crime."

Mr Hague said a Tory government would care about and address the problems of the inner cities.

"The people who live on these council estates have never looked to the Conservative Party for support, but I believe passionately that we still have a duty to help them.

"We are going to reclaim their streets from the drug dealers and car thieves.

"We are going to bulldoze the worst of the concrete tower blocks and ensure that there are new low rise homes where the criminals won't be welcome."

On the countryside, Mr Hague told the conference: "Only the most out-of-touch, metropolitan elite could regard the attack on our rural life and the desperate plight of our farmers as a source of amusement.

"Yet, in speech after speech and joke after joke in Brighton last week, New Labour poked fun at the anger and hardship of the people of the countryside.

"This Government thinks it is attacking only a small rural minority. In fact it is attacking the values of tolerance and respect, the values of the mainstream majority."

Mr Hague stressed Tories' commitment to the union. "For we are ready to govern for all parts of the country - and by country I mean the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

And he attacked the Government's approach to Europe. "A Conservative government will only be able to do all of these things and govern for all the people if we still have a country left to govern at all.

"For this Labour Government is taking us down the road to a European superstate."

On the single currency, Mr Hague said last week's no vote to the euro in the Danish referendum had "once and for all demolished Labour's bogus arguments and scare tactics.

"Now we must champion the cause of a flexible, free trading, low tax, lightly regulated Europe - a Europe that goes with the grain of the new global economy, in which nations combine in different combinations for different purposes to different extents.

"We will be the champions of that flexible Europe. And we will be the champions of Britain's right to govern itself. For we believe in being in Europe, not run by Europe."