We can talk about the time you criticised America’s ’state-sponsored terrorism’. I wonder if you will be raising that with President Bush next week?”Or we can talk about the time you praised the fortitude and resolve of the Wapping strikers. I bet you don’t remind Rupert Murdoch about that.”Mr Howard added: “I’m very happy to debate the past. But I rather think the British people are more interested in today and tomorrow than yesterday. We will take every opportunity to remind them of the failures today of your discredited Government.”In his second series of questions, the Opposition leader tried to exploit last week’s public differences between Mr Blair and Gordon Brown.

He asked: “Isn’t it an absolute disgrace that while the people of this country feel so let down over schools, over hospitals and over crime, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer spend their time squabbling over who should sit on the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party?”Mr Blair, returning to Mr Howard’s record, said it was “extraordinary” that he should suggest people were “suffering”. “If they are suffering under the Chancellor, what was it like when we had a million people repossessed?” DOSSIER ON BLAIR”We’ll negotiate a withdrawal from the EEC which has drained our natural resources and destroyed jobs” ­ in Sedgefield, 1983Backed “removal of all nuclear weapons from British territory and expressed solidarity with all campaigners for peace” ­ Parliamentary Labour CND advert signed by Mr BlairHe also criticised America’s “evil campaign” against Nicaragua and “President Reagan’s state-sponsored terrorism” by signing a Commons motion in 1988.”We will abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a proper democratically elected second chamber” – speech in 1993. Michael Howard ordered a purge of senior staff at Conservative Central Office yesterday, showing his determination to make a fresh start without some of Iain Duncan Smith’s key advisers. Under Mr Duncan Smith, the party ran up £500,000 in pay-offs after a series of staff changes at Central Office.Allies of Mr Howard were appalled by the infighting at party HQ under his predecessor.No new appointments were announced yesterday, but Will Harris, head of marketing at O2, has been tipped for a key role in the new team.There will also be a role for Bill Clare, a former civil servant who worked under Alastair Campbell at Downing Street. Although Mr Howard wanted to poach him for his staff, he is expected to remain working for Liam Fox, the party’s co-chairman.Mr Fox paid tribute to the three departing staff.

And then we want, as and when we can, to reduce the burden of tax over time.”Mr Letwin refused to give up his post at NM Rothschild, saying he would obey Commons rules to ensure no conflict of interest arose.But the Labour MP Kevin Brennan said: “I would have thought that the potential for a conflict of interest here would have meant it would have been better for him to stand aside.”. When Margaret Hodge was appointed to the newly created post of minister for Children just five months ago, she told friends that at last she had her dream job. The three, who were subjected to abuse at the hands of different paedophiles in Islington children’s homes, have horrific stories of the suffering they endured in the 1970s and 1980s.Mr Panton, who had been placed in care at the age of 10, was one of the many victims of Bernie Bain, a notorious paedophile who was head of one of the borough’s care homes. He complained about Bain on three occasions, in 1979, 1985 and 1992, but no action was taken by the council. Bain, whose predilection was for boys aged seven or eight, was never brought to trial in Britain.