Former chancellor Ken Clarke

Former Conservative leadership rivals Ken Clarke and David Davis have united to give their support to Iain Duncan Smith.

Addressing delegates at a conference fringe event, the two men agreed that while attacks from the Labour Party and the media could not be avoided, these were exacerbated by attacks from within the Conservative Party.

"Your opponents and the media will always attack a political leader," said Clarke.

"Our only way out of this is to start showing what we are talking about is a credible body of policies."

Davis added that Tory attacks on their own leader were creating a "problem".

Clarke went on to warn that the party "won't get anywhere at all in this conference" if the leadership issue dominates the agenda.

"The media decided last Friday what this conference was about," he said, urging delegates to prove them wrong.

Speaking ahead of his conference address on Tuesday, the shadow ODPM spokesman argued that the "nature of the political public" has changed since he entered parliament in the 1980s.

"Unlike in the post war years, today people don't all walk around with a red or a blue badge upon their lapel," he said.

"They are political consumerists."

He insisted that a programme of radical public service reform, combined with lower taxation pledges, would get the Tories back into power.

"What is important is not just that this strategy will make us able to win, it will make us deserve to win," he concluded.

Former chancellor Clarke argued that the only means of ending their years on the opposition benches would be to offer a "credible alternative" to the Labour Party.

"The public are more desperate to see a credible alternative government...than this time last year," he said.

"Our need now in opposition...is to come up with a body of policy that is credible and makes it clear to people how we intend to meet our objectives."

Clarke also called on the party not to call for a referendum on the proposed EU constitution, arguing that the document would actually strengthen the Council of Ministers and nation states and reduce the power of the European Commission.

"If this is all that brings conference to its feet, we will not have persuaded people that we are back on the real agenda of a stable economy," he insisted.