Labour has turned Britain into 'intruder state', Tories claim

The Labour Party has been accused of eroding the nation's historic liberties, strangling self-reliance and turning Britain into an "intruder state", at the Tory Party's annual conference in Bournemouth today.

In a catch-all broadside on Labour policy, Conservative Co-Chairman Dr Liam Fox slammed Labour for creating a "pocket money society" – where individuals were taxed more, leaving people with less and less of their income.

"This is not the nanny state - that makes it sound too cuddly. This is the intruder state, which is eroding our historic liberties, strangling our self-reliance and suffocating our freedoms," he said.

However, Dr Fox, who is responsible for getting the party's message over to the electorate, acknowledged that "voters had forgotten what the Tories stood for because the party had stopped telling them".

The failure of the party to get its message across was exposed during the recent by-election in Hartlepool where the official Opposition were beaten into fourth place behind the two national parties and the UKIP.

Promising a new direction, Dr Fox said that a Conservative administration would "give hospital patients more choice, would cut police paperwork and put more bobbies on the beat, and would reverse the reckless defence cuts ordered by Labour ministers".

The Tory Co-Chairman added: "We will set a firm timetable for a referendum on the European constitution. If we win an election in May, we will hold a referendum before we meet at next year's party conference... and we will campaign for a 'no' vote and we will get a 'no' vote."

Dr Fox also hit out at the UKIP, and said that the Conservatives would not let Britain be duped by "those on the dangerous fringe of British politics."

(gmcg)