Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has vowed to scrap Labour's "command state".

Pledging a dramatic decentralisation of public services, the Conservatives are seeking to end what they see as a culture of control under Tony Blair.

Duncan Smith was joined by senior colleague David Davis at the launch of a 100-page document which commits the party to the end of "total politics".

"There is a disease at the heart of Tony Blair's government. That disease is total politics," Duncan Smith said.

"The Hutton inquiry has laid bare the way this government works. For New Labour, politics is everywhere and everything.

"The summer's events have shown that the government's basic instinct is not to govern, but to control.

"New Labour talks about front-line staff - but expects them to take their orders from Whitehall."

The Conservatives will fight the next election, which could be as little as 18 months away, pledging to remove government interference in public services.

"When Conservatives talk about front-line staff, we want them to be free from orders from above...free from orders from politicians...and accountable directly to the people they serve: patients, parents, and the local community," Duncan Smith told his audience.

The policy blueprint is expected to open up a new front between the Tories and Labour.

In a foreword to the document, Davis said: "Public services and local communities are being stifled by a command state that forces front-line professionals to deliver the sort of services bureaucrats, rather than ordinary people, want to see."

The announcement could lead to fresh claims that the Conservatives would cut spending on public services.

Asked whether a Conservative government would seek to reduce the overall size of the state, Duncan Smith said he is "very firmly committed to this process of providing taxpayer value" .

"There is a huge amount of waste in the public services," he added.

Duncan Smith was also pressed on whether the new policy was a reverse of the 1980s Thatcherite trend towards curbing local government powers.

He replied that "we are where we are...I can't skip back several years".

"We can only respond to the situation this government has put us in," Duncan Smith said.

"This is the right policy for this century."