Jail knife carriers, urges Cameron

He was speaking at the launch of his party's campaign in the Glasgow East contest, which he described as "the broken society by-election".

Mr Cameron's speech spelled out a hard line on knife crime.

"We are proposing that anyone convicted of knife crime should expect to go to jail," said the Tory leader. "I don't believe that the Government's 'presumption to prosecute' is enough. It doesn't send a strong enough signal. We need a 'presumption to prison'."

Mr Cameron also set out to claim the moral high ground in politics, claiming that society had become "far too sensitive" to say what was right and what was wrong.

He argued that, both in that contest and in elections to come, Tories would make it their "mission" to repair the broken society - "to heal the wounds of poverty, crime, social disorder and deprivation that are steadily making this country a grim and joyless place to live for far too many people".

Mr Cameron set out his party's position in a church in Barlanark in the east end of Glasgow.

The church is dedicated to St Jude, patron saint of lost causes, but Mr Cameron, whose party came fourth in Glasgow East in the 2007 election, denied this made it an appropriate venue.

Before the speech, Mr Cameron and former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith visited the Gallowgate area of Glasgow, where they talked with local volunteers helping the families of drug addicts.

Mr Duncan Smith visited the east end of Glasgow in 2002 and it led to the Tories putting a new emphasis on poverty and social policy.