LONDON — Conservative Party leader David Cameron said he’ll reject party demands for tax cut promises and pledged to keep British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of an effort to woo British voters.

Ten months after becoming leader, Mr. Cameron faced the biggest gathering of Conservative supporters yesterday at the party’s annual conference in Bournemouth, England.

Mr. Cameron’s determination to avoid committing to tax cuts is designed to allay voters’ concern that the party of Margaret Thatcher would sacrifice the quality of state-run services such as health care for ideology. To do so, and recover winning popularity ratings that one poll showed slipping Saturday, Mr. Cameron must face down opponents in his own party this week, analysts said.

“Those people who say they want tax cuts and they want them now — they can’t have them,” Mr. Cameron said yesterday on BBC television’s Sunday AM program. “As the economy grows and more money comes in, we should share the proceeds” by lowering taxes, though there’ll be no “up-front” taxcutting promises.

Conservative lawmaker John Redwood will publish his own set of proposals to lower tax rates on income, corporations, capital gains, and inheritance, the News of the World reported yesterday.

The Conservatives lost three straight elections and four party leaders in eight years before picking Mr. Cameron, 39, in December 2005.

By avoiding discussion about tax and focusing on issues such as the environment, Mr. Cameron managed to maintain a lead in the opinion polls over the ruling Labour Party for most of the past four months.

Saturday, however, a YouGov Plc poll showed the Conservatives on an equal footing with Labour for the first time since May, with about 36% of the voters expressing their preference for one of the two parties.

Mr. Cameron’s personal popularity fell to about 35% from 46% because voters are unsure of whether there is “any substance behind the words,” the poll showed.The survey of 1,847 adults was taken between September 27 and 29, the three days following Prime Minister Blair’s speech to the Labour Party conference in Manchester, England.

To combat those views, Mr. Cameron plans to tell supporters and the broader electorate that he doesn’t want to rush into policy positions under pressure from pollsters.

“Getting ready for the responsibility of government is like building a house,” Mr. Cameron said in Bournemouth yesterday, according to excerpts of his remarks released by his office. “First, you prepare the ground, then you lay the foundations.And then, brick by brick, you build your house.”

Mr. Cameron also said he would stick to Mr. Blair’s policy of keeping British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq because the deployment is necessary.

A pullout from Iraq would “cause that country to descend into chaos,” he said in the BBC interview. “People should know that where the national interest is at stake, we believe in being the loyal opposition.”

Among the other issues addressed by Mr. Cameron were political corruption and party financing.A Conservative government would cap all donations to parties at $94,000, including from unions and businesses, and shift decisions on lawmakers’ pay away from Parliament to an independent body, he said.

In an interview in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Mr. Cameron said that, if elected, he would ask Parliament to reconsider the Labour government’s ban on fox hunting.

“I’m in favor of the freedom to hunt,” Mr. Cameron said. “I think the law was a great mistake.”