Britain: Mr William Hague has rallied to the defence of Mr Iain Duncan Smith, telling Tory critics they should "shut up, not put up. . ." and back the man they elected to succeed him, writes Frank Millar in London.
The former Conservative leader made his intervention on the second day of the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool during which the leadership launched yet another eye-catching proposal - this time for American-style sheriffs to decide local policing priorities - as part of an overall promise to devolve decision-making and reduce the power of the state.
Shadow Home Secretary Mr Oliver Letwin sought to position the Conservatives as the champions of crime victims on Britain's "hard-pressed" housing estates, with the recruitment of an extra 40,000 police officers over eight years. Promising a massive reduction in the powers of the Home Office, Mr Letwin said an incoming Conservative government would assign a block grant to local police forces, with directly-elected sheriffs or policing boards determining local crime-fighting strategy and how the money should be spent in their area.
Mr David Davis - who shadows the deputy prime minister - kept-up the Conservatives' newly-declared competition with the Labour government to extend choice by declaring that a Conservative government would "get politics out of the public services." Following Monday's announcements on proposed pupil and patients' "passports", allowing public funds to follow the pupils and patients to schools and hospitals of choice, there was some acknowledgement yesterday that the emerging Conservative blueprint had the potential to outflank the government in some areas.
However, this was not enough to drown the background mutterings of discontent and doubt about Mr Duncan Smith's ability to sell the party as a credible alternative government-in-waiting. One former Tory front-bencher, Mr Archie Norman, said the party was in a "pretty parlous" organisational state. Another, Mr John Bercow, who quit the front bench last November, questioned the leadership's renewed commitment to a tax-cutting agenda, and said it was "nonsense on stilts" to suggest there was increasing support for the Conservatives.
Meanwhile, former chancellor Mr Kenneth Clarke made it clear he would not rejoin the shadow cabinet even as his former colleague Lord (Douglas) Hurd suggested Mr Duncan Smith should lock himself into a hotel with his most senior critics over a weekend to develop a fistful of policies on which they could unite.
Mr Hague told the BBC's Today programme: "We had a leadership election two years ago. The members voted by a big majority for Iain Duncan Smith. I think he is pursuing the right policies." Asked what could be done about his critics, Mr Hague said: "They should shut up, not put up, and support the elected leader of the party."