A DELEGATE at the Women's Institute national conference has criticised the 'bad manners' of colleagues for heckling Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Although Anne Atkinson, former president of Simonstone and Read WI, agreed with criticism that Mr Blair's speech was too political, she said of other members: "I thought it was bad manners. You don't treat people like that." Mrs Atkinson, a member of the WI for 38 years, said she had attended other conferences in the past and never seen a speaker receive the same reception.

But she said nobody on the coach to the conference in Wembley knew Mr Blair was going to speak and they only found out on Wednesday morning when the agenda was rearranged to include him.

"When we found out at breakfast that he was speaking, there was an underlying feeling that people were uncomfortable with it, but it didn't bother me," she said. "When he came on the platform he started off very pleasantly, but people in the row in which I was sitting were saying he shouldn't be there and as soon as he walked in, one started booing.

"If our organisation is non-political, then politics shouldn't come into it and that includes the politics of our own members. I did feel his speech got too political when he started saying what the Government was doing and linking it to crime and drugs and I began to feel he was going on too long.

"If he had kept his speech to family values he would have had a better reception. I think it has backfired on him.

"I was on the tier and I could see people at the front starting a slow hand clap and one or two shouted at him and I thought they were very bad mannered.

Doris Tiffin, president of Hoddlesden WI, said she had only ever known one speaker who had been heckled -- when he had praised genetically modified foods.

She said: "He was heckled, but I have never known anyone to be slow-handclapped before.

"Tony Blair's speech was completely unexpected, because we are not a political group."