The British election campaign came alive yesterday as Conservative proposals to detain all asylum-seekers in "secure reception centres" were branded "mad, bad and dangerous".
In a carefully-constructed speech, heard in silence, Mr Hague stressed his pride in Britain's long tradition of offering a haven to those fleeing danger or persecution. He cited the example of the father of his colleague Mr Michael Portillo - forced to leave Spain at the end of the civil war to avoid imprisonment or death. And he declared: "I would be ashamed to live in a Britain which closed its door to the genuine refugee."
The Tory leader's decision to play the asylum card was widely seen as a desperate bid to close the gap on Labour, just as a MORI poll showed it widening further. Mr Hague chose the flashpoint port of Dover to deliver his message that Britain under the Tories would offer "a safe haven and not a soft touch". And he pledged to draw-up a list of "safe" countries whose citizens would not "normally" be accepted.
But the conclusion drawn from the MORI poll for the Economist was that the Conservative Party was "campaigning on the wrong issues and with the wrong leader". The poll gave Labour a sensational 28-point lead - the highest recorded by any polling company in the last 18 months - and showed the Conservatives plunging below their 1997 levels of support, with just 26 per cent.
While polling experts sounded a warning - MORI produces consistently higher Labour leads than other pollsters - the findings added to the sense of mounting desperation in Mr Hague's attempt to connect with voters and avoid a meltdown on June 7th.
Promising to clear up "Labour's asylum mess", Mr Hague said: "No one fleeing from persecution will object to being welcomed and cared for while their application is being determined." At the same time, he added: "By ensuring that the centres are secure we can make sure that people who are trying to evade immigration controls are kept in one place and are not able to disappear into the wider community."
But his proposals were immediately condemned as "shocking" and "inhumane" and possibly illegal. The Prime Minister, Mr Blair, accused the Tory leader of "complete opportunism", while the Liberal Democrat leader, Mr Charles Kennedy, said the decision to make asylum an election issue was "mad, bad and dangerous".
Mr Kennedy said "the Conservatives ought to be ashamed of themselves," adding: "All I can say about this latest lurch into populism by William Hague is he is a party leader and they as a political party that now combines all the instincts of Alf Garnett with the electoral appeal of [the 1983 Labour leader] Michael Foot."
The European director of the UN High Commission for Refugees warned that the Tory proposals would create more problems than they solved. Ms Anne Willem Bijleveld told the BBC: "It is clear that if you treat people like criminals, then they may behave like that. If you treat them like normal, decent people they will behave like decent people."
And the director of the Refugee Council, Mr Nick Hardwick, described the detention plan as inhumane: "It means detaining people who have not committed any crime, including women and children, many of whom have been persecuted."
Mr Hague promised speedier decision-making on asylum applications and appeals and said there would be a presumption in law that an application would be unfounded if the applicant began his or her journey in, or had travelled directly from, a "safe country". But the Home Office Minister in charge of immigration, Ms Barbara Roach, said it was "very possible" that the Tory plan to hold all new asylum seekers in secure reception centres could face a legal challenge in the European Court of Human Rights.
The minister also claimed the Conservatives would need to build 64 detention camps each with a capacity of 500 - a total of 32,000 places at a cost of £2 billion, with ongoing running costs of £1 billion a year.
However, Ms Anne Widdecombe, the shadow home secretary, later insisted the Conservative plan would actually save money by deterring more bogus asylum seekers from travelling to Britain. In the last year of the last Conservative government 32,500 people sought asylum in the UK. By last year the number had soared to 76,000. While nearly 80 per cent of all applications were rejected, only 9,000 of the failed applicants were deported.
Deputy Prime Minister Mr John Prescott was questioned by police yesterday in connection with his scuffle with a protester on Wednesday. North Wales police travelled to Hull to question Mr Prescott, who attended the interview voluntarily.