Portillo backer considers think tank

His candidature may be dead but his ideas live on

A key backer of Michael Portillo's failed campaign to lead the Tory party is considering setting up a think tank.

Mr Portillo, who was voted out of the Tory leadership contest in the penultimate round last month, has said that he no longer has ambitions to run the party.

What we would like to see is a flow of creative ideas

Archie Norman

But supporter Archie Norman said he wanted the shadow chancellor's policy ideas to continue as that would be the way to bring the Tories back to an electable state.

He said that he was not sure that the remaining candidates, Iain Duncan Smith and Ken Clarke, had grasped the extent that the Conservative Party needed to change.

He told BBC Radio Four's Today programme that the two candidates were "conducting their campaigns as though the last four years didn't happen".

The shadow environment secretary insisted that a lot had been achieved under William Hague but the party had to reach out and address peoples' daily concerns during the election campaign.

Equal respect

"I think the agenda that Michael stood for - equal respect for all our citizens, and relating focus on solving the ills of our society, an internationalist approach and reconnecting with urban Britain and focusing on public services - these are the thing that will get us back into the mainstream," Mr Norman said.

Mr Norman pledged to support Mr Hague's successor

He said that he would not yet announce who he was backing to succeed Mr Hague out of right-winger Mr Duncan Smith and pro-European Mr Clarke but he insisted that whoever won would not be undermined by those who had backed Mr Portillo.

"What we would like to see is a flow of creative ideas, of new policy ideas and a gentle pressure to influence the party in the direction in which we want to see it move and that is why we are talking about the possibility of setting up a think tank or some other creative organisation capable of putting forward these new ideas," said Mr Norman.