Tory leader's trip to the seaside

CONSERVATIVE leader Michael Howard swept into town on Wednesday as part of a whistle-stop tour of the Sussex coast.

The leader of the opposition had been to Hove, Brighton and Seaford before finishing his day with a visit to Rock-a-Nore to meet Hastings and Rye fishermen.

He was joined by prospective Conservative candidate Mark Coote, who will hope that having the Tory leader visit will help him in his bid to unseat Michael Foster as local MP.

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Mr Howard, MP for Folkestone and Hythe, arrived at just after 3.30pm in glorious sunshine. He had a brief look at Johnny Swann's fish shop before getting a fried plaice fillet roll from Tush Hamilton's stall outside the net huts.

The Tory leader might be able to handle Tony Blair at Prime Minister's Question Time but his fish roll was too hot for him and he put it down after a couple of bites.

Mr Howard then went on a tour of the fishing boats, saying hello to residents who had spotted him on the way.

He was guided down to the beach by Paul Joy, chairman of Hastings Fishermen's Protection Society, before being led back up to Maggie's cafe next door to the society's office. The cafe has become something of a magnet for top Tories with former Conservative leader William Hague stopping in for a mug of tea before the last general election in 2001.

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I chatted to Mr Howard about fishing policy and he said, if elected Prime Minister, he would do all he could to persuade the European Union to scrap the Common Fisheries Policy and put quotas back in national control.

He said: "The system has failed and I think it would be better dealt with at a national level."

I asked him what he felt the key issues were for Hastings' voters in next year's general election. He talked in general about national policies instead of local problems.

"We think that most of the issues that will decide the election in Hastings are the same as those nationally. We feel the country is on the wrong course, this government has not kept its promises on everything from crime to tax to health," he said.

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I then pointed out crime had actually come down in Hastings over the past year, a statistic that was met with a steely glare. He said: "That was only one year and the fact is that crime is going up nationally."

At the end of our chat, Mr Howard sat down with Mr Coote and the fishermen to talk in detail about the fishing industry and his visit was over.

Mr Joy said he was pleased with how the meeting went. "It was a public relations exercise coming up to an election but he did listen to the points we had to make. We asked him if he advocated withdrawal from the Common Fisheries Policy and he said he did. We now want to see something in the manifesto to that effect. We told him we had been let down by our last Conservative MP, Jackie Lait, and he said he couldn't do anything about the past.

"He now knows a lot more about what we do and the problems with the cod quotas. It was a positive meeting."