Queen's Speech: Howard says 'its time for delivery'

Tuesday, 17 May 2005 12:00 AM

Conservative Party leader Michael Howard and Prime Minister Tony Blair today exchanged verbal blows as the House of Commons returned to debate the Queen's Speech.

Mr Howard taunted Mr Blair over comments by Labour backbenchers urging him to stand down as Prime Minister sooner rather than later.

Mr Howard joked that from personal experience: "The way to get your colleagues to ask you to stay is to set a timetable for your departure."

But Mr Blair hit back by goading the Conservative leader over the election result. Since the war, he said, there had only been three elections when the Conservatives did not return over 200 seats: 1997, 2001 and 2005.

"The truth is that people weren't thinking what he was thinking ... they were remembering what we were remembering," Mr Blair said.

Earlier, Labour MPs Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) and Vera Baird QC (Redcar) opened the debate.

Mr Howard began by paying tribute to their speeches and welcomed the new intake of "high calibre" MPs.

He noted the Prime Minister's comments that he had listened and learned. "The signs, I fear, are not encouraging," said Mr Howard.

He ridiculed the Prime Minister over the botched rebranding of the Department for Trade and Industry, and his failure to get his way in the reshuffle, which had left him "saddled with second choice ministers".

Turning to the Queen's Speech, Mr Howard suggested that many of the policies were very similar to those put forward by the Conservatives. "We had no idea he was thinking what we're thinking," said Mr Howard, arguing that the only one of the five key Conservative election pledges missing was lower taxes.

Mr Howard also attacked the Prime Minister over the Working Time Directive, noting that Labour MEPs voted for it despite the Government's opposition to it. "He hasn't even got the authority to get his own members of the European Parliament to listen to him," the Tory leader said.

He added that what mattered now was delivery. "The Prime Minister talks about these things. For the sake of our country I hope his actions finally match his words."

Mr Blair hit back by accusing the Conservatives of being willing to do anything other than engage in debate about their policies on public services: "Where are these policies now?" he asked, before adding: "Where was that fantasy asylum island?" to raucous applause from the Labour backbenches.

Mr Blair also poked fun at the race to be the next leader of the Conservative Party. "Aspirant Tory leaders fall over themselves to appear on TV without a tie," he said.

He cited an interview with Tim Yeo in the Financial Times, in which he noted that Francis Maude had conducted an interview in his socks. This prompted Mr Blair to say Tory leadership pretenders were "tieless, shoeless, but above all clueless".

Mr Blair went on to outline some of the measures in the Queen's Speech, describing them as "quintessentially New Labour".

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