Howard: I'll sack ministers who break promises

Guardian ^ | 10/05/04 | Michael White and Nicholas Watt

[Pikamax]

Howard: I'll sack ministers who break promises

Michael White and Nicholas Watt Tuesday October 5, 2004 The Guardian

Michael Howard will today make a dramatic attempt to win the trust of disillusioned voters by promising to sack cabinet ministers who fail to deliver the detailed election promises on target.

In a self-lacerating address to the party faithful and the wider television audience, the Conservative leader will admit during his speech to the party's conference in Bournemouth: "Politicians seem to live in a different world, where promises are dropped just as casually as they are made, a world where there are no penalties for failure."

Mr Howard received a boost today when it emerged that Paul Sykes, the Yorkshire millionaire who has been the main Ukip financial backer, has fallen out with Robert Kilroy-Silk over his wholehearted endorsement of the party's weekend decision to "kill off" the Conservatives.

Mr Sykes, who contributed nearly half of Ukip's £2m fighting fund for this year's European elections, said the policy of fielding candidates who could unseat Eurosceptic Tory MPs at the next election meant he could no longer support them. The decision will be a huge relief to Mr Howard and a reward for his hardline policy on Europe.

The news came as David Davis, the shadow home secretary, admitted Ukip had the ability to really damage Conservative fortunes, estimating they could cost as many seats as the Referendum party in 1997 - between 30 and 50. Mr Sykes, who has welcomed Mr Howard's tougher line on Europe, said Ukip had "blown it".

The Conservative leader will break with tradition by making his keynote conference speech on a Tuesday, much as Labour leaders have long done, as part of his desperate attempt to restore momentum and credibility to a party battered by defeat for a decade.

The detailed "timetable for action" which the Tories are publishing in daily instalments includes "specific times, specific dates, no wriggle room", Mr Howard will say, a day after his chief lieutenant, Oliver Letwin, promised smaller government and lower taxes - without yet being specific.

Mr Howard will say: "Everyone will be able to hold us to account, no dodgy facts and figures, we'll have no place to hide. I'll choose my cabinet because I expect them to deliver. And if they don't I'll replace them with people who will." It would be a hostage to fortune if Mr Howard's prospects were better, although Lord Saatchi, his party co-chairman, said in Bournemouth that, if there was a snap election this autumn, his private polling suggested there would be a hung parliament.

But as the Conservative leader put the finishing touches to his speech in the wake of yesterday's Times/Populus poll which put him in worse shape than the purged Iain Duncan Smith a year ago, a fresh poll for BBC Newsnight heaped further gloom on him.

Only 12% of voters believe Mr Howard, now 63, will ever be prime minister, with even 65% of Tory supporters among the 78% overall doubters. Nearly twice as many people believe the Lib Dems are a more effective opposition, 42% compared with 22%. Mr Howard's recent anti-war stance over Iraq is widely attributed to mere point-scoring. The Times poll showed his party slipping back, on 28% to Labour's 35%, barely above the Lib Dems on 25%.

Mr Howard's private polling almost certainly confirms such alarming impressions and is likely to have prompted today's masochistic admission of past error, as well as what is billed as a "highly personal section" about the core of his beliefs. This confessional section will also include detail about the death of his mother-in-law more than two years ago as a result of a hospital-acquired infection. "It's a tragedy for thousands of families - including mine," Mr Howard plans to say.

With senior Tories trumpeting the "right to choose" in public services as the real road to social justice, one flagship Tory initiative to pave the way for tax cuts was cast into doubt last night hours after being deployed in a conference video.

To the delight of Labour, Tim Yeo, shadow transport and environment secretary, made clear that he would not be bound by a party special review of government spending by one-time Dome troubleshooter David James which has so far identified £15bn pounds of savings in government spending. These will eventually be used to fund tax cuts. Mr Yeo told the environment magazine ENDS Report: "It isn't a priority for me."