An anti-war protester with slogans daubed on his bare torso heckled Tony Blair as he delivered a speech on public health today.

The man could barely be heard as he shouted from the back of the Albert Hall in Nottingham. He removed his shirt to reveal the slogan "IRAQ WAR STILL ILLEGAL" painted on his chest and "IMPEACH TONY BLAIR" on his back.

Mr Blair was applauded when he responded to him by saying: "You would have had a chance to put a question later.....one of the great things about this country is it is a democracy and you are entitled to put your view but I'm also entitled to make my speech."

Kirk Jackson, 34, a self-styled anarchist from Nottingham, was escorted out of the hall but was not arrested.

Speaking outside the conference centre, Mr Jackson said that he applied to attend the speech through a government website and passed the necessary security checks because he had no criminal record.

"Ever since the Iraq war I have just been fumingly cross about the whole thing. The fact he was so close to George Bush and agreed on George Bush’s plan to invade Iraq, even though nobody wanted it - I couldn’t believe he got away with it and is still in power.

"These lectures may be about domestic policy but he still shouldn’t be allowed to forget what he did and what he is still doing," he said.

In his speech, the second in a series titled "Our Nation's Future", the Prime Minister again warned junk food manufacturers that they would be forced to restrict advertising to children if a voluntary code being developed with the Government did not work.

He also suggested that the Government was prepared to introduce legislation to enforce clear labelling of content such as fat and salt - a system already used by some supermarkets including Sainsbury's, Asda, the Co-op, Boots and Waitrose. Again he warned that the Government was prepared to force those retailers who did not back the scheme to comply.

But overall the Prime Minister's message was that it was no longer appropriate for the Government to intervene with the kind of paternalistic approach to people's health that it displayed in the 1940s. There was now a new era of greater individual and corporate responsibility, said Mr Blair.

He said that the Government would help the public take responsibility for making health choices - particularly on health timebombs such as obesity, smoking and lack of exercise, which could help to relieve some of the pressure on the NHS.

"These individual actions lead to collective costs. It is worth pausing for a moment to consider the consequences that inaction will bring. The economic burden of chronic disease, including lost work, the early drawing down of pension entitlements and the need for palliative care, could be vast," said Mr Blair.

In particular he focused on obesity, which costs the NHS £2.6 billion a year. The incidence of obesity was rising, said Mr Blair, with one in four adults and children categorised as obese. He was also concerned that 20 per cent of all children in the UK were not eating any fruit or vegetables in a day.

The Food and Drink Federation, which represents the UK food and drink industry, said it was playing its part in helping people to make the right choices for a healthy lifestyle with measures like reducing levels of fat, salt and sugar.

Nick Stace, director of campaigns at Which?, said: "Children are still exposed to unrelenting marketing and promotion of unhealthy foods from an industry that has yet to show it can act responsibly. Today’s warning to industry to play their part in tackling the nation’s biggest public health challenge or face the legislative stick should be the wake-up call the industry needs."

Joe Korner, a spokesman for the Stroke Association, said getting people to change their behaviour was neither easy nor cheap and called for more Government support and resources.

And Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrats' health spokesman, accused Mr Blair to trying to absolve himself of responsibility. He said the best way of tackling the growth in health inequality was to deal with underlying issues such as poverty, poor housing and the environment.

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