TORY leader William Hague was forced into a damage limitation exercise last night amid fears the party's carefully choreographed conference strategy would be undermined by splits over a hard-line crackdown on drugs.

The rift followed an earlier squabble over how ''tolerant'' the modern Tory Party had become on social issues.

On the eve of his key conference speech, Mr Hague took to the airwaves in Bournemouth in an attempt to divert attention from a furious row amongst party activists in the wake of the pledge, from Shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe, to impose immediate #100 fines on anyone caught with even the smallest amount of soft drugs.

Mr Hague publicly backed Miss Widdecombe's proposals, disagreeing with the Police Superintendents' Association, which considered them ''impractical and unenforceable'', and Tory critics like Lord Cranborne, who believes cannabis should be decriminalised.

On Channel 4, Mr Hague said: ''I don't think we should capitulate to the scourge of drugs. Ann Widdecombe has produced an extremely practical policy. We've looked at what has been done in other countries, particularly the US, to crack down on crime.''

Miss Widdecombe may be the Tory with her finger on the pulse of the party. But after receiving a standing ovation from party members for her usual hard-hitting keynote address on law and order, the criticism began to fly.

As well as her pledge on #100 fines, she insisted there would be new powers to enable people to be charged with possession if they were found with traces of drugs in their blood.

A future Tory Government would introduce automatic bans for drivers caught behind the wheel under the influence of drugs. Claiming that one-third of all crime was caused by drugs, she said: ''Surrender to the drugs menace? We couldn't do that. We shouldn't do that. We won't do that.''

But the former Tory Leader of the Lords, Lord Cranborne, called for cannabis to be legalised and warned the legal system could be undermined if few people treated it with respect. ''You play into the hands of criminals if you make the law into an ass when nobody wants to obey the law and, indeed, regards breaking the law as a bit of a challenge.''

Police and human rights groups were also unimpressed with Miss Widdecombe's proposals.

Mr Peter Williams, national secretary of the Police Superintendents' Association, said officers did not want to punish people for simple possession and it was better to try to divert them away from drugs.

Mike Goodman, director of the national drug charity Release, called the proposal ''wrong in principle and counter-productive in practice''.

John Wadham, director of human rights group, Liberty, said: ''Dragging thousands of adults through the criminal justice system is a waste of police resources.''

Meanwhile, Shadow Chancellor Michael Portillo's call for a more tolerant Tory Party and Miss Widdecombe's reaction to it added to the rift.

Miss Widdecombe, the right-wing darling of the party conference, had insisted: ''I have never quite been sure what is meant by that phrase social tolerance.''

The controversy was in danger of overshadowing the leader's speech this afternoon, when Mr Hague will say: ''New Labour was not a philosophy, it was a fashion. There is nothing more unfashionable than a fashion out of date. What a bunch they are, the soap opera of a government.''