Election '97: Ashdown pours scorn on opponents' patriot games provoke

For the first time in the election campaign, Paddy Ashdown last night staked his claim to patriotism after encountering a rough ride on the streets of Portsmouth at the hands of the nationalist Referendum Party.

Invoking his own career as a soldier and diplomat, Mr Ashdown denounced the "phoney patriotism" of the Conservatives and the "designer patriotism" of Labour. In a rally at Eastleigh, Hampshire, he called on voters to remember the spirit of Winston Churchill who had insisted that Britain should prepare for war. "If the true patriots in the 1930s saw the need for Britain to re-arm; the true patriots in the 1990s see the need for Britain to re-educate - to do something to improve the level of education and skill in our country."

On Europe he said the true patriot would see it - in the words of Kenneth Clarke - as a great opportunity, rather than a "lair of spiders" as characterised by John Major.

His patriotism, however, was called into question earlier by banner-waving supporters of the Referendum Party who were involved in minor scuffles with Liberal Democrat activists.

As Mr Ashdown went on a "walkabout" in Portsmouth shopping precinct, he was surrounded by representatives of the Referendum Party who attempted to hijack the proceedings. "Why won't you let the people of this country have their say?" shouted a heckler.

Eventually the Liberal Democrat leader decided that his ploy of ignoring his noisy detractors had not worked. He told them: "You are entitled to your view, but you won't win many votes by being rude." He also reminded the hecklers that his party had supported referendums on major European issues since 1991.

In his speech he derided the Tories for "wrapping up their failures in the Union Jack".

He said: "Is it patriotism to stand by and watch as our society becomes more and more divided? As young people are forced to sleep rough on our streets? As people are left behind in poverty, without hope?

"Is it patriotism to see our National Health Service undermined and underfunded? Is it patriotism to see our children's prospects limited because education is so undervalued?"

He said true patriotism meant restoring the traditional values of "decency, tolerance and fair play" and acting with self-confidence abroad. The Tory drift to the right, towards "mean-minded nastiness" had left one-nation Conservatives disillusioned, depressed and in search of a new home. He urged them to emulate Emma Nicholson and Peter Thurnham, former Tory MPs who joined the Liberal Democrats.

"Nothing is more distasteful about cornered Conservatives than the way they pretend they are the only people who can stand up for Britain," he said. And as for the bulldog and Union flags now used by the Labour Party, patriotism was more than "symbols"; it came from the soul.