THE grandest of Tory grande dames turned up at the conference hall yesterday to the usual acclaim and managed to spark a pensions row by branding Tony Blair's policy on the subject ''an outright fraud''.

After last year's performance when Margaret Thatcher stole William Hague's thunder by appearing alongside ex-Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet and using Scots Night to lambast our continental cousins for bringing about two world wars, Tory Party managers were noticeably keeping a tight rein on the ex-Prime Minister.

Yet despite their best efforts the baroness was able to attack the Labour Government over pensions. ''For years, as a young MP, I was a junior Minister for pensions and the money people paid into their pensions, they got out in their pensions in their old age. Not now . . . that to me is outright fraud. ''

It was, of course, Lady Thatcher who controversially broke the link between rises in pensions and average earnings, and last night Jack Jones, President of the National Pensioners Convention, hit back, saying her remarks ''took my breath away''.

Later another former Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath, attacked Mr Hague, accusing him of producing policies ''out of the blue'' on fuel cuts and pensions increases. He warned him: ''They say you are just making it up on the spur of the moment . . . that is a very dangerous technique.''