Iain Duncan Smith will today tell Tory delegates that their party must "live in the present" if it is not to repeat the 1997 and 2001 election defeats.

The Tory leader will warn: "To those who want to refight the battles of the past and to those who want to live in the past I simply say this: You stay in the past [because] we are moving on."

Duncan Smith will also admit that the Tories did not change during the 1990s to meet new challenges.

"All of us here want to remember the good things we did and there were many. But beyond this hall people too often remembered the hurt we caused and the anger they [the British public] felt."

Times commentator, Peter Riddell, cautions Duncan Smith that Conservatives need hope at the polls rather than more policies.

Writing in the Telegraph, the Tory MP for Henley and editor of the Spectator, Boris Johnson, says: "The Tories will never sell [the new policies] to the lectorate, if they don't try to welcome the punters into the store, give them a beam, make them feel at home, and give them the spiel in a non-aggressive and non-judgmental way."