Following the boost from his party's Bournemouth conference, Iain Duncan Smith has today taken his message on public sector reform to the rest of the country.

The Conservative leader visited schools and community centres in Manchester, before focussing on health during a visit to Birmingham on Tuesday.

The week after his party set out a series of new policy initiatives on education, health, crime and pensions, Duncan Smith was taking the message that the Conservatives are now "fit for government" to the country at large.

Duncan Smith's message has been that Labour has failed the most vulnerable members of society by failing to deliver the high standards of public service that it promised.

After unveiling 25 new policy initiatives at their party conference, the Conservatives argue that they now have the ideas to succeed where the government has failed.

And by visiting a school in Manchester's troubled Moss Side estate, Duncan Smith is continuing to promote the agenda previously highlighted by his visit to Glasgow's Easterhouse estate earlier this year.

Duncan Smith has frequently referred to his experiences in the Easterhouse estate and the drug abuse, graffiti and deprivation he had found. He accepted there was a "moral challenge" to help people in such areas.