FORMER Conservative Party leader William Hague told Worcester voters that labels like "Thatcherite" no longer exist.

Mr Hague came to the city to bolster the campaign of Tory candidate Margaret Harper as opinion polls continue to show their party lagging behind Labour nationally.

They spoke to shoppers and staff at Tesco in Warndon Villages. As one of the city's most densely-populated residential areas, with its fair share of anti-social behaviour and just a stone's throw from Worcester's PFI-financed hospital, the voters here are the sort of people the Conservatives must convince.

Mr Hague was keen to talk about immigration and tax and said this election's campaign was destined to be more successful than the one he led four years ago - not necessarily because the Conservatives had better policies or a slicker message but because voters no longer "want to give a Labour a chance".

"They voted for Labour because Labour were pretending to be Conservatives," he told the Worcester News.

"Now they've realised they were not really Conservatives because, after eight years, they've not reduced taxes and they are failing to get a grip on other issues such as immigration."

The former leader said the rise in profile of the BNP was not a consequence of the Tory desire to make immigration an issue but rather "an illustration of how Labour has been letting things drift."

The visit of a Conservative "big-hitter" is symbolic of how important Worcester is at this General Election, and Mr Hague, while admitting it was a "target constituency", said "it's not an election that's easy to predict".

Like people across the political spectrum, Mr Hague said concerns about the level of crime was likely to play a big part in how people voted in Worcester.

And, while admitting to being a "Thatcherite", he said, "Things have moved on".

"Old labels like Thatcherite don't exist any more. Problems to be tackled, like the MRSA superbug in our hospitals, didn't exist during Mrs Thatcher's time as Prime Minister."