David Willetts urged Tories yesterday to take heart in the face of polls showing them trailing Labour and said that David Cameron must continue to reach out beyond their traditional supporters.

At a fringe meeting in Blackpool hosted by The Times, he said that the party must stick with a modernising agenda even if it meant making mistakes and some in the party found it uncomfortable.

Mr Willetts, whom Mr Cameron moved from his post as education spokesman earlier this year after he accused grammar schools of entrenching advantage, said the Conservatives could overhaul Labour’s lead only by challenging their own supporters.

“For a decade or more we were just above 30 per cent. We should be doing the things we need to do to reach out to 40 per cent or more, which is what you need to be in government in this country,” Mr Willets said.

“Moving from 30 per cent strength to 40 per cent strength may be uncomfortable, you can make mistakes, but is absolutely the right thing to do. It is far better than staying in our comfort zone. That’s the way we reach out.”

He admitted that an analysis of the Conservatives’ position by Populus, The Times’s polling company, made uncomfortable reading, with Gordon Brown and Labour ahead of Mr Cameron on almost every indicator.

But Mr Willetts, now the party’s spokesman on universities, said that hope for the Tories lay in an underlying dissatisfaction with the Government picked up by the poll, with 67 per cent of people asked saying that the country was going in the “wrong direction”.

A further 54 per cent said, after ten years of Labour, that it was “time for a change”, while 43 per cent preferred to stick with the “Devil you know”, even though voters would rather have Mr Brown as prime minister by a margin of 55 to 36 per cent.

On a day of further policy announcements Michael Gove, the Shadow Schools Secretary, confirmed plans to make it easier for charities, churches and voluntary groups to set up new so-called “pioneer schools” within the state sector where parents wanted them and to increase funding for schools that accept more pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

He called it a scandal that the gap in academic achievement between pupils from poorer homes and the rest widened as children went through school, and said that parents should have meaningful choice and more control over their children’s education.

Mr Gove also pledged to give more backing for teachers, by removing the right of appeal against a head teacher’s decision to expel disruptive children and changing the law to give anonymity to teachers accused of misbehaviour until the complaint against them was heard.

“What does it do to the very principle of authority in a school when the headmaster’s wishes can be overruled to favour troublemakers and thugs?” Mr Gove asked.

“Under a Conservative government that sort of nonsense would end. The balance of power in the classroom will shift back to the teacher.”

Plans to give social housing tenants a stake in the value of their home in return for good behaviour were announced by Grant Shapps, the Tory housing spokesman.

The idea was put forward by a policy group on public services, chaired by the former Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell, which proposed that tenants should qualify for an equity share of 10 per cent in their property, worth up to £20,000, which they could use to help to buy a home of their own.

Mr Shapps also confirmed that the Conservatives would abolish home information packs. He backed Mr Brown’s plans for a big increase in housebuilding but said that local communities should be more involved in decisions on new housing.

Meanwhile, Zac Goldsmith, the environmental campaigner and co-author of the Tories’ quality of life policy group, admitted that its proposal to introduce parking charges at out-of-town supermarkets was a misjudgment. It was scrapped by the party yesterday.

Mr Goldsmith said the group had failed to balance the “gain and pain” in the proposal, but said he would continue to oppose airport expansion.

— An aide to a senior Tory peer has been suspended after a racist reference appeared on the internet. Philip Clarke, who works for Lord Lyell of Markyate, the former Attorney-General, was suspended after a “blacked up” Tory worker was posted on Facebook. A Tory spokesman said: “Racism has no place in the Conservative Party.”

Times Recommends

• Revealed: how Eurocrat leaked secrets over dinners
• Politicians use the net to brainstorm
• British spy in longbow plot to kill Himmler