Liberal Democrat Leader Charles Kennedy will today attack the language used by Tony Blair and President Bush over future action against terrorism.

He will tell his party conference in Bournemouth: "War is not the word. Nor is Crusade. Resolve is."

Mr Kennedy will say he fully backs the Prime Minister's actions so far, but added that President Bush must not be given "a blank cheque".

Last night, he told a Press conference that he reserved the right to disagree with military action at some future stage.

"We would not be a democracy if we did not exert that right," he said.

Meanwhile a local MP warned of anti-Muslim feelings causing racist attacks in the North East.

Phil Willis, MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, was a key adviser persuading Mr Kennedy to make an emergency speech today, while hastily re-arranging the conference agenda in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

The MP, who is the party's education spokesman, told The Northern Echo: "In the North-East, we have not traditionally had a race problem, and have absorbed immigrants and asylum seekers into our societies.

"We don't want that now to explode into riots like we had in Oldham and Bradford."

He added: "What we need now is to go that bit further - make sure we say that innocent people must not be killed, thereby creating a holocaust for the next generation."