Blaze death charge A security guard was sent for trial accused of killing the firefighter Fleur Lombard, 21, who died in a supermarket blaze in Bristol in February. Rover has written to all affected owners asking them to contact their dealer to have free checks done.. Murder squad in hunt for gunman Murder squad detectives are hunting a 31-year-old man who fled after allegedly threatening them with a shotgun. South Wales police said David Alfred Willoway may be armed. They were investigating the murder of Helen Martin, 18, whose battered body was found at the Symond's Yat beauty spot in Herefordshire on Wednesday, four days after she was last seen at a Maesteg pub.Detectives who watched a security video showing Helen leave the pub disco with Willoway said yesterday he was not a suspect but may have been the last person to see her alive after dropping her off in his car near her home.. that's why people don't trust Labour because they don't know whether the modern Labour Party is a Trojan horse or an empty vessel.". It is Labour that now speaks up for the insecure majority, and puts forward the policies that meet their concerns."Mr Ashdown, while declaring that the Conservatives had "completely lost the trust of the British people", warned that "the problem for Labour is that they are so frightened of their shadow ... Fear of poverty in old age".Mr Blair said the electoral battlefield had once been portrayed as "Labour for the poor and disadvantaged against the tories as the party of the secure and comfortable majority."But, he added: "It has changed.

Fear that the NHS cannot cope and that any one of us, any one of our children or our parents could be the victim. It came as Paddy Ashdown, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, also combined a scathing attack on the Tories over Westminster council as "the final nail in the coffin of Tory probity" with a prediction that the next general election would be "a battle about trust".This included "fear, fuelled by government legislation, that if you lose your job you also lose your home Fear about crime. Mr Blair used his speech to the Welsh Labour conference to condemn the Conservatives in the wake of the Westminster "homes for votes" scandal as a "degenerate party that loves lecturing the people about right and wrong but has long since ceased to know the difference between right and wrong itself." But his speech was heavily injected with references to what private polling suggests is one of the lasting reasons for the Tories failure - so far - to stage a political recovery: "job insecurity and fear". Phil Gallie, the Tory MP for Ayr, won majority support in a straw poll of Tory representatives for a manifesto commitment to bring back the death penalty.There was also strong support for silencing the Duchess of York and the Princess of Wales.. Tony Blair yesterday launched what is likely to be one of his party's most dominant themes between now and the election - that the Tories have created an "insecure majority" for which he claimed Labour was the new champion. They have dallied with more seductive models than Andrew Neil (former editor of the Sunday Times). And their commitment lasts as long."The search for a populist manifesto for the Conservative Party was highlighted in a question-and-answer session.

We have one of the tightest systems of gun control in the world," he said.. An attempt to win back the support of "Essex Man" was made yesterday by Peter Lilley, the Secretary of State for Social Security, with a claim that the Conservatives were the true party of the working class. Dismissing Labour's claims that the Tories were only a middle-class party, Mr Lilley told the Scottish Conservative Party conference in Aberdeen that the party's appeal went far broader. "We must make it clear We Conservatives are the party of the hard-working classes. We don't care if they have blue collars or blue blood," he said.The home of "Essex Man" - Basildon - fell to the Labour Party in last week's local elections, underlying the extent to which the Tories have lost the traditional support of the blue-collar Conservatives who put Margaret Thatcher in power.Mr Lilley's remarks were seen as a signal that the Conservative Party's right wing, to which Mr Lilley belongs, will push for a more strident appeal to win back the working-class Tory supporters in the run-up to the general election.The Secretary of State became the third Cabinet minister in two days to claim that plans by Gordon Brown, the Shadow Chancellor, to scrap child benefit for 16 to 18-year-olds from wealthy families would amount to a "teenage tax" costing families pounds 560 a year.Ridiculing Labour's search for a solution to the problem of rising welfare spending, he said: "First they flirted with the Singapore model Then with the Australian model Now with the Japanese model. Mr Barnes, MP for Derbyshire North- East, said: "If the Australians can move so quickly after their massacre in Tasmania, it shows that following Dunblane we could take action rather than having to conduct further inquiries."But Mr Howard insisted it would be foolish to rush into new laws ahead of the inquiry. "Australia is a country which has at the moment a fairly lax system of gun control.

"There comes a time when people have to stop talking about knee-jerk reaction - it is obvious the Australians do not think it's a knee-jerk reaction to act so quickly," he said."My worry is that by the time Lord Cullen has brooded over these matters it will be the autumn and it is very difficult to envisage any legislation being in place before next year at the earliest."The Labour MP Harry Barnes called on the Government to "stop dithering" and learn a lesson from Australia. The Government will make parliamentary time available."It was not immediately clear what type of weapons Mr Major had in mind, since a wide range of automatic and semi- automatic guns were banned in 1988 following the Hungerford massacre.Earlier the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, said the Government was ready to implement any proposals put forward as backbench frustration grew in both main parties.Ministers have insisted that they will not be forced into a knee-jerk reaction by pressure for a ban on hand guns and other weapons.David Mellor, the former Home Office minister, said there was now an overwhelming case for a ban on hand guns above .22 calibre. The results of this year's 11-year-old tests which begin on Monday will be published next March.A spokesman for the Department of Education and Employment said secondary- school performance tables were established and well-used by parents, and the time was right for parents to compare primary schools' performance.. The Prime Minister last night pledged new controls on semi-automatic weapons in the wake of the Dunblane massacre. He said legislation would be introduced in the autumn following the official inquiry by Lord Cullen into rules governing firearms. The move came as backbenchers piled on pressure for action following the decision by the Australian government to ban semi-automatic weapons only 12 days after a gunman left 35 dead in Tasmania. Patience wore thin among MPs that curbs in Britain would have to wait until recommendations were made by Lord Cullen from an inquiry that has yet to start properly, weeks after the slaughter in the primary school at Dunblane.Last night Mr Major announced that legislation on the control of semi- automatic weapons "will be introduced in the autumn after Lord Cullen's inquiry into the murders.