In his keynote speech to the Conservative annual conference in Blackpool, the Opposition leader Iain Duncan Smith has warned his critics that the choice for party is clear – "get on board, or get out of the way".

Mr Duncan Smith told delegates that in the two years since being elevated to the Tory leadership, the Conservatives had become the "largest and fastest growing party of local government", and were the "largest and fastest growing political youth organisation in the country".

He said: "My mission is to take the Conservative Party back to government. I won't allow anything or anyone to get in my way. We must destroy this double-dealing, deceitful, incompetent, shallow, inefficient, ineffective, corrupt, mendacious, fraudulent, shameful, lying government once and for all.

"I say to everyone here today: You either want my mission… Or you want Tony Blair. There is no third way.

"To those who doubt and to those who deliberate, I say this: don't work for Tony Blair. Get on board, or get out of our way. For we have got work to do."

The self-styled 'Quiet Man of Politics' impressed the conference with his impassioned and occasionally belligerent speech, as they interrupted him 18 times with applause. And were the loyalty of one's party measured in the length of the tradition end-of-speech-ovation, Mr Duncan Smith has got the jump on the Prime Minister – the Tories remained upstanding one-and-a-half minutes longer than their Labour counterparts did last week.

(gmcg)