LONDON, July 25 (UPI) -- Senior Conservatives in Britain have urged Michael Howard to hold his nerve as party leader despite recent setbacks, the BBC reported Sunday.
The last two weeks have seen the Tories come last in two by-elections and the government survive the Butler report on pre-war intelligence unscathed.
Ex-ministers Michael Portillo and Lord Heseltine said he should resist calls for the party to shift to the right, the BBC reported.
Tory Lord Tebbit has said such a move is necessary if the party is to win the general election. He has described Michael Howard's leadership as "colorless" and warned Tory "dead-weights" to expect a third general election defeat. Only a return to the Thatcherite agenda of the 1980s can save the party from defeat, he said.
However, Portillo argued in a newspaper article that the Conservative Party can only win from the political center ground.
His message is reflected by former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine, who also warned against any such move saying it would be a "suicide decision."
