Davis claims he can stand up to Labour
Conservative leadership hopeful David Davis today went on the offensive by insisting that he was the man to stand up to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
The shadow home secretary has previously made much of his experience on the front benches of the Tory party, as an MP and as chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, compared to his rival David Cameron.
And during a speech at the University of Lincoln today, Mr Davis insisted he was better equipped to stand up to the force of new Labour than his 39-year-old rival, David Cameron, who has only been an MP for four years.
The two Tory leadership candidates will go head to head in another hustings this evening in Bolton, after Mr Cameron has met with party members in Shropshire and North Wales.
The shadow education secretary is currently leading in opinion polls, but today Mr Davis said he was the only one who could face the prime minister over the dispatch box.
“I am ready for that fight. I know what to expect from Tony Blair. And I believe I have the skills to face him down,” he told Tory members and students.
He added: “I give you one pledge today. I will take Blair on and beat him. I believe I am the candidate best equipped to withstand the Blair/Brown offensive and see our party through.
“It will take guts, resilience, a vision of a new Conservative future for our country and, above all, experience to withstand the fire to come. I will not let you down.”
Mr Cameron has been widely compared to Mr Blair, because of his youth, his style and his call for the Tories to change their image. If he wins the race to succeed Michael Howard, at the next election he would be the same age as Mr Blair was when he took power in 1997.
He has vigorously denied the comparisons – although he has admitted he agrees with a number of Labour policies, such as foundation hospitals – but today Mr Davis took the chance to once again insist that he, at least, would not be an “heir to Blair”.
“Blair’s public service reforms are half-baked compromises between his increasingly mutinous left and his dwindling ranks of new Labour supporters,” he said.
“They will not work and they deserve to be rejected. We are the only party capable of real reform of our public services and we will have nothing to do with the prime minister’s elastoplast policies.”
And he claimed that he had led the revolt in the Commons last Wednesday over the 90-day detention plans, which led to Labour’s first defeat in parliament since 1997.
“I will do no deals with Tony Blair. I will have no truck with those who argue that because there is some merit in Blair’s plans, because he has taken a couple of minor and ineffective steps in our direction, we should prop him up in the Commons,” Mr Davis said.
