POLITICAL battleaxe Ann Widdecombe stormed into the North-East yesterday proclaiming that the Tories can win the next election - and that they may have to take inspiration from Middlesbrough's Ray Mallon to do so.

The former Home Office minister, who now finds herself on the Conservative backbenches, was speaking to local activists in Bishop Auckland yesterday lunchtime and took part in a Durham University debate in the evening.

Getting off her train in Darlington, straight-talking Miss Widdecombe said: "We can win next time. I've been to 100 constituencies and the same two statements keep coming back to me from people who have decided not to indulge in the democratic process: 'it doesn't make any difference, all of you are the same', and 'it doesn't make any difference, we don't believe a word you say'.

"Our duty as an opposition is to take on those two statements.

"I can remember when the differences between the parties smacked you on the nose. But now, not only is Tony Blair not re-nationalising everything we privatised, he's doing his own privatisations. So people say you are not giving us a choice and democracy is founded on choice.

"Among our many policies, we need two or three that really distinguish us from Labour and make a difference that is discernible by the guy in the Pig and Whistle."

She said crime was an area on which the Tories could be hugely different.

"For example, up here if you say zero tolerance Mallon-style, everyone knows what it is, therefore it is easily understandable and it is not being done by the current Government."

As well as pursuing different policies, she said the Tories had to distance themselves from the spin of the Labour Party.

"Spin is only a posh word for deceit," she said, "and we have to make a positive virtue of speaking the truth, even if it is not what the electorate want to hear. Like 'I'm terribly sorry, we can put another 10p on income tax and spend it on health but it still won't meet every last demand that is made upon the NHS because we are now doing things daily that would have been science fiction for the founding fathers of the NHS'. We need a new approach to deliver health for all."

She concluded: "If we can offer choice and tell the truth, so people start to take seriously what we say, we really can win.

"I think it's going to be uphill, but there's no law of nature that says you can't walk up hill."