The Tories in Bournemouth: Major sets out his stall for election: Tough-talking Prime Minister returns fire on Labour, but chairman's opening salvo is blunted by the Mark Thatcher affair

JOHN MAJOR last night wrapped himself in the Union Jack, staking out the ground on which he appears to be planning to fight the next election.

Answering Labour's successful conference last week, Mr Major painted the Conservatives as the 'national' party - against constitutional change, believing in a united kingdom and independent within Europe.

He also claimed experience to be on the Conservatives' side, saying of Labour: 'They are entitled to learn. But we musn't allow the country to be their laboratory experiment.' Labour's policies would be 'the slippery slope back to the problems this country has sweated blood to put right'.

In an unusually punchy speech, Mr Major argued that on the economy, 'Britain has taken the pain and is poised for the gain'. But the ground he chiefly staked out to separate the Conservatives from Tony Blair's 'new Labour' was that the Conservatives were 'a national party - not an amalgamation of splinter groups'.

Mr Major told the Conservative agents' dinner that Labour was 'foolish to tinker with the Constitution'. Labour's plans for a Scottish and Welsh Parliament were not thought through, and such tinkering was 'dangerous' and 'explosive'. If a Scottish National Party majority one day voted for independence, 'we would have a Quebec situation on our hands. This is folly and it should be dropped now'.

Proportional representation, Mr Major said, would bring 'weak government', while 'messing around with the Lords is silly. It's a funny old place, but it works. Change its nature and you may lose its value'.

On Europe too, he claimed, Labour's policy did not add up, its promise never to be isolated implying it would 'roll over and go with the pack' on issues such as a centralised Europe or abolishing the pound. 'I have never heard such a craven attitude from a serious political party.'

'All the big nations of Europe fight like ferrets in a sack for their national interests. Believe me I know,' he said, painting himself as the man of experience who knew it was 'a rough, tough old world out there'.

At the opening of a week in which some in his party want to see the Conservatives shift right to put 'clear blue water' between themselves and Labour, Mr Major depicted Labour as borrowing Conservative convictions, rather than suggesting that he intended to surrender that territory.

'We're not searching around for a new set of values and a new identity. We haven't borrowed our principles. We believe in them.'

The Tory leadership was accused by Labour of a fresh gaffe last night when Michael Dobbs, the new deputy chairman, said in an interview with the Scotsman newspaper that Tony Blair was 'rather like Gerry Adams'. But he quickly added: 'No, he's not like Gerry Adams, I will rephrase that.' John Prescott, Labour's deputy leader, said the comment showed 'poor taste and poor judgement'.

Leading article, page 15

(Photograph omitted)