The former Conservative MP Quentin Davies was given a warm reception by the Labour Party conference as he made a platform speech longer than those allowed by most Cabinet ministers.

His eight-minute address was punctuated by several bursts of applause, and occasional cheers, as he showered praise on Gordon Brown and launched a savage attack on David Cameron.

In another sign of Mr Brown’s “big tent” strategy of reaching out to voters from other parties, Mr Davies spoke after Shaun Woodward, the Northern Ireland Secretary, who was a senior Tory official and MP before defecting to Labour in 1999.

Three other former Tory MPs – Lord Temple-Morris, Robert Jackson and Anthony Nelson – were also welcomed to the conference by Harriet Harman, Labour’s deputy leader. Mr Woodward made only a brief and indirect reference to his past as a Conservative politician.

But Mr Davies, who crossed the floor of the Commons in June on the day that Mr Brown became Labour leader, told delegates that he came from a “decent” One Nation tradition of Conservatives.

He was applauded loudly as he told them that Labour now represented the authentic One Nation vision for Britain and appealed to like-minded Conservatives to follow him in joining Labour.

Mr Davies cut an unlikely figure at the Labour conference podium, addressing delegates as “ladies and gentlemen” and praising Mr Brown’s reforms to capital gains tax and for entrenching the City as the world’s leading financial market.

He won his audience over by praising Labour for introducing the minimum wage, employment rights in the EU social chapter, tax credits and independence for the Bank of England.

“You should be proud of being members of a party that did those fine things,” he told them. “I am deeply proud to join a party that did those fine things.”

He accused Mr Cameron of embracing foolish, superficial and contradictory policies, such as promising teachers more autonomy yet telling them to teach phonics and to set pupils by ability; matching Labour’s spending plans yet making spending pledges “like confetti” and offering irresponsible tax cuts.

Echoing Labour’s line of attack on the Tory leader, Mr Davies accused him of lurching to the right.

“When the going gets a bit tougher and opinion polls go down, David Cameron goes right back to the nasty old Tories’ bunker and starts obsessing about Europe and immigration.” He accused Mr Cameron of lacking any guiding sense of conviction and contrasted him with Gordon Brown, whom he said offered “immense dedication, tremendous conscientiousness, of extraordinary and consistent sound judgment, and of sheer great competence and experience”.

Wendy Alexander yesterday apologised to the Labour Party for the election defeat in Scotland in May, saying that too many voters in Scotland felt that they had lost touch with the party (Angus Macleod writes).

Ms Alexander, elected 10 days ago to lead Labour in Scotland, told the conference that while Scots had not “lost faith” with Labour values, they did wonder whether the party had lost sight of how to put them into practice.

Her words were seen as implicit criticism of Jack McConnell, her predecessor, although this interpretation was denied by her aides at the conference.

Times Recommends

• Should Knox’s trial even have reached the courtroom?
• All that glitters is not sold in Wright’s world
• Believe it or not, Big Brother is your friend