Traditionally, the results are announced during the annual conference in October and defeats for pro- Blair candidates in the past two years have caused embarrassment to the leadership.The NEC will approve a new code of conduct for internal party elections. It alleged that a Blairite group of candidates, Members First, spent pounds 100,000 on their campaign and that a senior Labour official intervened "in a partisan way" to support them.Tomorrow the NEC will agree to bring forward this year's election to the party's ruling body to the summer. Chingford and Woodford Green party claimed in its motion there were "serious deficiencies" in the running of last year's NEC elections. Mr Blair's leadership will come under attack tomorrowwhen Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) approves new measures to curb dissent by reforming the annual elections to the committee. The allegations of growing central control will be heard as the NEC prepares to suspend the party in Newark, where a by-election looms after the Labour MP, Fiona Jones, was found guilty of election fraud.Labour MPs are worried the growing discontent at Mr Blair's "autocratic" style could harm the party's prospects at the local elections in May and European elections in June."We regret the enormous damage which is currently being done to the democratic credentials of our party", said the north-west Cambridgeshire Labour Party."The attempts to interfere or predetermine the outcomes of the selection and election processes in the European election, Wales, Scotland and London are so blatant that we are in danger of making even the Tories appear democratic."The constituency party in Folkestone and Hythe said the introduction of "loyalty tests" rather than competence tests was "not consistent" with Mr Blair's commitment to one-member-one-vote elections "and will damage the reputation of this party for openness and fairness".

TONY BLAIR will be hit by a new backlash this week from Labour activists who accuse him of "control freakery" in his running of the party. There followed a sharp drop in demand for antibiotics.But underlying the Government's drive to reduce the demands on GPs is the conviction that with limited resources from taxpayers, other ways must be found to meet the almost unlimited demand for health services.A radical Tory alternative encouraging the use of more private sector care will be put forward tonight by Alan Duncan, a Tory spokesman on health, in a speech to the Social Market Foundation.. We are not talking about self-diagnosis," a Whitehall source said.Community pharmacists could also be given the power to prescribe for the first time on a limited list in response to the Crown Report, published last week, which recommended an expansion of carefully controlled prescribing beyond GPs to other health professionals, including nurses.Patients could be allowed for the first time to consult pharmacists and get prescriptions on the spot, on strictly limited protocols agreed with the professions.Mr Denham, more controversially, will urge the NHS to match the service to patients that is offered to customers by many high street outlets including banks and hotels.He is expected to tell the conference: "The public is becoming less willing to accept that there must be a big gap between accessibility and responsiveness of public services and the accessibility and responsiveness of commercial services."Mr Denham will assure the health service management conference that he is not calling for the NHS to match private health clinics.Giving patients access to information about health management proved valuable in one trial where GPs provided data showing that the over- use of antibiotics was undermining their effectiveness. "We are not talking about putting a medical dictionary on the Net and asking people to cure themselves There is demand for information about healthy living.

PATIENTS COULD be offered access to the Internet on the NHS to help to relieve the pressure on family doctors. The Health minister John Denham will today tell a London health conference that he wants to see the Internet used in libraries and high street pharmacies to help patients to help themselves. Ministers stressed that they would not be asking patients to treat themselves. With the position of David Trimble, first minister-designate in the new assembly, weakened by vociferous opposition from Ulster Unionist hardliners at a party meeting on Saturday, Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, once more reiterated that he could not force the IRA to hand over its weapons.He said yesterday: "If anyone thinks I, or anybody else, can deliver for them what the British army could not do and what the British government could not do in 30 years, then I am afraid all of us are heading for a continuation of what we have seen so far, tactical manoeuvring by the Unionists and a veto being asserted."Mr Trimble, who is demanding the IRA start the decommissioning process before Sinn Fein can take its place in a ruling executive, found his room for manoeuvre pared down still further when he was heckled by anti-agreement members at the end of his speech at the Unionists' annual general meeting on Saturday.His attempt to oust four anti-agreement members from key posts in the party and replace them with pro-agreement members also failed, and it is clear that there may be a move to overthrow Mr Trimble's leadership if he softens his stance any further.. An RUC spokesman condemned what he called a "horrific attack"As this latest attack was added to the toll of those maimed in Northern Ireland, politicians on both sides said they were determined to find a way to make progress before the first anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.But there were more signs of the sheer enormity of the task.