UK News 07-10-2002 Tory Leader: Finish What Thatcher Started who: Iain Duncan Smith what: To unveil 25 "radical" new policies at Party conference where: BOURNEMOUTH when: This week snippet: "Tory chief Iain Duncan Smith will this week mount a determined fightback and vow to complete the unfinished Thatcher revolution," reports The Sun`s George Pascoe-Watson this morning. "He and his Shadow Cabinet colleagues will unveil 25 radical new policies at the party`s annual conference in Bournemouth." "Mr Duncan Smith will say that his policies, the product of a year of research, will have the same impact as the principles published in Margaret Thatcher`s Right Approach pamphlet in 1976," explains The Times. The Guardian says he is gambling on his political future by pledging "to complete the mission of his political heroine by applying her principles to the public services". "Among the ideas to be announced this week," outlines The Independent, "are giving all NHS hospitals the right to free themselves from Whitehall control, Borstal-style units to cut youth crime, state scholarships to allow parents of pupils at failing schools to pay for private education, fines for patients who miss GP appointments, longer sentences for juvenile offenders and a new `lifelong savings account` to encourage financial independence in old age." The Mirror reckons the leader has now been nicknamed "Deep S**t" by "despairing Tory MPs" and that 25 rebels are plotting to depose him in favour of sacked chairman David Davis or former minsiter Kenneth Clarke, the latter of whom broke with tradition by refusing to rule out standing again when IDS beat him in the leadership contest following William Hague`s resignation. [... more]

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