"THE show goes on," Mr John Major pledged yesterday at the end of a successful conference in which he hailed "the week the Tory family came together, to renew the family contract with the British nation".
With the heat of the election battle drawing ever closer, Mr Major told the party faithful: "I didn't come from two rooms in Brixton to 10 Downing Street not to fight with every fibre of being for the things I believe in.
Mocking Labour's pretensions and Mr Tony Blair's Blackpool rhetoric, Mr Major said: "in less than 1,000 days, Labour would vandalise nearly 1,000 years of British history." Scorning Mr Blair's claims, he said: "It simply won't do for Mr Blair to say `Look, I'm not a socialist any more. Now, can I have your job please?' Sorry, Tony. Job's taken. And anyway, it's too big a task for your first real job.
The central question at the election, he said, was: "`Who can be trusted with the future?' Labour tried to persuade people it was them: `We're different,' they say. `We've changed our name. Rely on us - you know we've always been wrong in the past.' Well, that's candid - if a touch eccentric. Trouble is they're wrong in the present as well."
Mr Major's speech was a relatively low key affair, cast in deliberate contrast, it seemed, to the presentation which surrounded Mr Blair's big event at Blackpool.
The Prime Minister asserted it was the Tories who gave people "a real stake" in their country, and repeatedly pledged their commitment to "opportunity for all". There was a further signal that next month's budget would advance the Tory drive to a 20p basic rate of tax: "As soon as we can afford it, we'll move to a 20p basic rate for all. That's our priority."
To further encourage wealth creation they would reduce and then abolish capital gains tax, and over time "our next target is to remove the burden of inheritance tax."
Mr Major gave a new pledge on the National Health Service, promising additional funding, over and above inflation. And he outlined plans for the electronic tagging of young offenders "so we can confine them to their homes, and know that curfew is being kept."
On Europe, Mr Major said: "We believe Europe must become more flexible and responsive. That the only realistic future is a partnership of nations, not a United States of Europe ... Britain is a great nation. Of course we must be in Europe. But we are in Europe to help shape it - not to be shaped by it."
Tearing into Labour's plans for devolution, he said "their priority would be to gerrymander the British constitution." Their Scottish policy, he claimed, was in chaos: "What a message. Vote Labour - for more politicians, more bureaucrats, more taxes, more regulations, more tampering, more meddling, more authoritarianism"