Portillo spoils heir apparent’s party
Michael Portillo has come forward to question whether leader-in-waiting Michael Howard has the ability to radically reform the Tory party.
Mr Howard is the only candidate at present for the vacant job of leader of the Conservative party.
Iain Duncan Smith resigned last week after losing a no confidence vote.
Mr Howard, a former Tory home secretary, has a track record of supporting right-leaning policies but last week he said he wanted to unite the party around several centripetal middle-of-the-road policies.
But Mr Portillo questioned whether Mr Howard would jettison his former “socially conservative” stance.
Mr Howard previously opposed a ban on gay adoption and the promotion of homosexuality in schools.
Mr Portillo said Mr Howard would have to build on Iain Duncan Smith’s notion of one-nation conservatism by speaking up for Britain’s growing underclass.
Mr Portillo told The Sunday Times: “I think Howard is somebody who gets the maximum leverage out of any situation. The way his bandwagon was moving last week shows he’s got pretty good organisation and discipline and augurs well for the party.”
Mr Howard has the support of over 122 Tory MPs – out of a total of 165.
Michael Portillo told the BBC Sunday: ‘Although the modernisers in the party are a minority, so Michael Howard has no obligation particularly to listen to what we are saying, I do think that the Conservative party has a problem, particularly with its representation.’
‘There are too many people like me – white, middle-aged from the south-east of England, middle-class – we need some more variety in the party.’
‘We need to look as though we represent society as a whole and that we understand society as it is.’
