HOWARD APPEALS FOR TRUST

Michael Howard today launched an appeal for voters' trust with a
sweeping programme of pledges on schools, health, immigration, Europe
and crime.

Making his first conference speech as Conservative leader, he admitted
the public had been deceived by parties of all colours in the past and
vowed: "I'm going to give it to you straight."

Putting trust and credibility at the heart of his election campaign,
he promised to sack any Tory ministers who failed to deliver on an
action plan covering the first days, weeks and months of a future Tory
government.

"We will promise only what we can deliver," he told the Bournemouth
gathering. "What we start we will follow through."

Mr Howard was speaking against a backdrop of disappointing polls,
including one showing that only 12 per cent of voters think he will
ever become Prime Minister. He countered the gloom with a volley of
promises that he said would "respect people's dreams and turn them
into reality".

On crime, he promised 5,000 more police officers and to build new
prisons to allow harsher sentencing and an end to early releases.

"The gloves will come off," he said. "What Giuliani did in New York, we
will do for the whole of Britain: a war on crime."

The police had become "distant and remote" because they were
"handcuffed by paperwork", taking an hour to fill in forms just for
stopping a crowd of youths in the street.

Mr Howard said the forms would go "in the appropriate filing tray -
the bin".

The Tory leader was also promising to scrap fixed-penalty fines for
shoplifting, which he said had decriminalised theft. "Theft is now no
worse than parking on a yellow line."

And he said Labour's early release scheme had led to 3,600 crimes,
including rape, by ex-offenders. "All this has to change," he added.

"We need a government that will stand up for the silent, law-abiding
majority who play by the rules and pay their dues. Career criminals
and dangerous offenders should be in prison - not roaming the streets.
So we will build more prisons." On drugs, described as the root of
much crime, Mr Howard promised 18,000 more rehabilitation schemes and
a choice for criminals between "prison or treatment".

He said drug abuse was a symptom of a wider problem.

"As a society we've blurred the distinction between right and
wrong.

"We've tolerated a slow but relentless decline in personal
responsibility. You hear it all the time: 'I've got my rights' - the
verbal equivalent of two fingers to authority."

A Tory government, he claimed, would make it easier for teachers to
expel unruly pupils.

On the NHS, he attacked ministers for allowing more people to die from
hospital-acquired infections than die in road accidents. "That's more
than a statistic, it's a tragedy for thousands of families."

He described how his 89-year-old mother-in-law Rosalie had died from
an infection in hospital. "Yes, she was old. Yes, she was frail. But
she still enjoyed life. She need not have died."

Promising more choice of hospitals for patients regardless of wealth,
he twisted Labour's rhetoric to declare: "That's what I call social
justice.

"We've all paid for the NHS. It's our NHS, so why shouldn't we be able
to go to the hospitals that can treat us more quickly?"