Davis warns Tories to keep Right

Last updated at 15:19 02 June 2005


Conservatives should keep to the Right and not move to the political "centre ground", leadership frontrunner David Davis has said.

Former Tory prime minister Sir John Major warned at the weekend that the party will not get back into power without doing so.

But the shadow home secretary said: "I do not agree with the argument on the centre ground".

Instead right-winger Mr Davis cited Sir Keith Joseph, seen as the architect of Baroness Thatcher's reforms.

"Many, many years ago another Conservative spokesman talked about the common ground and there is a very important set of areas of common

ground," he said.

"The most obvious one is public services."

They were simply just not up to scratch "despite all the money we put in", he told the BBC.

"We have got to be really, really serious that we want to reform those (services) in people's interest. That sort of vision of Britain. That is what we must do."

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