Hague fires warning at PM

William Hague says people are fed up with Labour

William Hague warned the Prime Minister that his reception from the Women's Institute had shown how out of touch he was with the people of Britain.

The Conservative leader said the incident proved that people "really are now fed up with the endless talk of the Government".

Speaking in Llandudno, north Wales, on the eve of the Welsh Conservative Party conference, Mr Hague said: "They have had all talk and no delivery and people are really fed up with it now."

He (Mr Blair) has not delivered on the most basic promises that he made to the people of Britain

William Hague, Conservative leader

Mr Hague said Tony Blair had to learn a lesson from the hostile response to his speech to the WI national conference.

He said: "I just hope that he began to realise yesterday how fed up they are."

"He showed no sign when he came to the House of Commons a few hours later of understanding why it had happened to him.

"And indeed when I asked him why it had happened, he was not able to give any explanation. But I can tell him why.

"It is because he is out of touch with the people of the country, because he is becoming increasingly remote and because he has not delivered on the most basic promises that he made to the people of Britain."

Members of the WI heckled and slow hand-clapped Mr Blair when he delivered a keynote speech in London.

Speaking to BBC Wales on Welsh affairs before the conference, Mr Hague said: "I recognise the logic of devolution and we have to make it work.

"Whatever we thought about it in the past, we owe it to the people of Wales."

Mr Hague said disagreements between the Tories in Wales and Westminster over policy matters, such as education, would be allowed.

This was in contrast, he said, to the attitude of the "control freaks at Number 10" in their approach to devolution.