Howard pledges tough line on drugs

CONSERVATIVES IN BOURNEMOUTH

Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, yesterday brought the Conservative conference to its feet for the longest standing ovation of the day with a speech pledging new measures against drug dealers and stalkers, and cleverly finished off with a Euro-sceptical rallying call.

Compared to the red meat of law-and-order debates past, it was a restrained affair but Mr Howard's new announcements of a crackdown on dance clubs suspected of allowing drugs and the go-ahead for a law against stalking were enough, with a recap of already-trailed measures, to satisfy the Tory faithful.

He said that Tony Blair had failed the test on crime, by opposing the renewal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act in early 1994. In a later interview, he accused the then shadow Home Secretary of voting the wrong way even "as IRA bombs were raining down on Heathrow airport".

He contrasted the Labour leader with John Major, "a leader who can be trusted, a leader tried and tested in the heat of battle, a leader to take us into the next century".

The text of Mr Howard's speech was issued with six pages of notes detailing his "new" proposals, many of which will be contained in a new Crime Bill. "I can tell you today that Bill will be published within a month. And I want it to be the law of the land next spring," he said.

But observers are sceptical that the Bill, now heavily loaded with a compendium of unrelated measures, could be enacted in time for the general election, against opposition from judges and the Lords.

The new measures in Mr Howard's speech were a crackdown on dance clubs, in support of which the Home Secretary cited the death last year of Leah Betts, a power for courts to name juvenile offenders and a pilot scheme to give courts powers to disqualify people from driving a car as a punishment for any offence, rather than simply driving offences and stealing cars.

Mr Howard also declared "I will make sure" that women get protection from stalkers. The Home Office made it clear that it intended to back a private member's Bill to legislate "at the earliest possible opportunity".

He repeated his plans - condemned last week by Sir Thomas Bingham, England's most senior judge - for automatic life sentences for second- time serious sexual and violent offenders.

He said: "Last month a rapist was sentenced to life at Chelmsford Crown Court. Described by the judge as 'verging on the satanic', he had been convicted of rape before - not once, but twice, and one of his victims was a nine-year-old. Because he wasn't given a life sentence he had to be released. Released again to rape."

But the most pointed part of his speech was his closing attack on Labour's European policy. "This country's sovereignty, this country's democracy, this country's independence, are at stake. They are sacred trusts. They are vital to our future. And, under the Conservatives, they are not negotiable," Mr Howard declared to loud applause.