Lang cautions against 'one more right turn'

cost an unprecedented fifth term in office.

''We must avoid giving the appearance of being tired, of running out

of steam and of intellectual fatigue. At the same time, whilst remaining

radical, we have to avoid going that one revolution too far,'' he

declared.

Mr Lang, giving the Swinton Lecture to a Conservative Political Centre

summer school in York, used the occasion to back John Major's version of

Conservatism as the politics of ''common sense and instinct''.

In doing so, he issued a sharp reprimand to right wingers in the party

who have been critical of the apparent lack of a dominating ideology --

like Thatcherism -- in John Major's Government.

''I think it would be wrong, as you may guess, to settle on the

adoption of an ideological approach as the solution to our problems,''

Mr Lang said.

''An ideology is often the rationalising patina that is overlaid, in

hindsight, across a range of decisions and events that at the time were

much less certain in their outcome and much more pragmatic in their

development.

''Ideology can be a substitute for thought, and an

ideologically-driven party ultimately becomes a pastiche of itself,

entirely in the grip of ideologues applying, uncritically, yesterday's

answers to today's problems.''

In fending off the challenges of a revitalised Labour Party, which he

accused of stealing Conservative policies in their quest for office, the

Conservative Party had to deal with voters wanting change.

''We must be alert to the fact that there can develop in politics an

impulse for change which -- if unheeded -- can become inexorable.''

Mr Lang said that the Conservatives had to be the party of change for

the better, not change for the sake of it.

One of the achievements of Mrs Thatcher was to move the ''centre of

political gravity'' to the right, creating a new centre ground which the

Conservative Party's first task would be to hold against an encroaching,

modernised Labour Party.

The danger in a rightward lurch in philosophy would be the loss of

considerable sections of this centre ground to a Labour Party ''oozing

novelty'', making it very difficult to muster the necessary votes to

retain power, he said.

Accusing the Labour Party of shallowness and ''glossing over the

political landscape'', Mr Lang said that the guiding principles of

mainstream Conservatism, a creed ''which begins with the individual'',

had to be continually re-emphasised to combat voter boredom with the

Conservative Party after its 15-year hegemony.

This emphasis on the individual is part of a claimed decentralising

ethos inherent in Mr Lang's Conservatism, which he described as

''politics on a human scale''.

Central to this Conservatism was a sense of community, which Mr Lang

claimed his party fosters and Socialism undermines.

The Scottish Secretary also sought to present the caring side of

Conservatism.

His prescription for the UK's social ills was not through direct

governmental action, but through a strengthening of the community.

He said: ''In that way we can end the exile from the community of

those people who feel so alienated and apart from it -- the poorly

educated, demotivated youths without jobs and, it seems, without

prospects. Their alienation is a threat to the community -- but it is

the community which can embrace them and end the threat.''