A public row over the British Conservatives' drift to the right was reignited yesterday by the former prime minister, Mr John Major, who attacked the leadership of his successor, Mr William Hague.
Writing in the Spectator magazine, Mr Major launched a savage attack on Tories who advocate a move farther to the right and urged Mr Hague to mobilise the left and the centre of the party to win the next election.
"It was suicidal and it is sad to see a handful of Tory MPs have not learnt the lesson and still argue for more partisan right-wing policies. `We're not Conservative enough', they bleat. Rubbish. That way lies ruin. It is enough to make a saint despair, but William must not," he wrote.
He added: "William should travel a pragmatic, tolerant Tory route and he will find he has more allies than anyone supposes. Pragmatism is not a dirty word - it is good, old-fashioned Tory virtue."
Mr Major's intervention came after the resignation of a high-level economist appointed to a Tory advisory panel quit amid allegations of Conservative spindoctoring. Mr Irwin Stelzer, a close aide of the newspaper tycoon, Mr Rupert Murdoch, resigned from the 15-strong Council of Economic Advisers, which was intended to give the Tories' economic policy a fresh start for the new millennium.
In his new year message to the party, Mr Hague urged grassroots activists not to become "downhearted" and insisted that they had the right policies to return the Tories to power.