Howard to pick team without Portillo

Published on Saturday 8 November 2003 00:00

NEW Tory leader Michael Howard was this weekend putting the finishing touches to his shadow cabinet following his unopposed election.

But the Conservative frontbench team will be missing two of the party’s biggest names, Michael Portillo and Kenneth Clarke, who yesterday both ruled themselves out of a shadow position.

Mr Portillo shocked the political world by announcing he will quit Parliament at the next election, saying he had lost his appetite for the "cut and thrust" of the Commons and wanted to pursue a career in the media, arts or public bodies.

The former defence secretary said he had been offered a shadow cabinet post by Mr Howard, but declined to say what the job was. He insisted his rejection was no snub to the new Tory leader, but purely due to his plans to stand down.

"The reason I couldn’t serve in the shadow cabinet was not that I didn’t want to serve Michael Howard but that I wasn’t going to be in the next Parliament when I hoped Michael was going to be forming the next Government," said Mr Portillo.

Labour was quick to seize on his departure as a sign that Mr Howard’s pledge to lead the Conservative Party "from its centre" was already unravelling.

"The modernisers have given up the ghost," said Labour Party chairman Ian McCartney.

"Michael Portillo has accepted that the fight to move the Conservative Party back to the centre ground is a lost cause."

Mr Howard indicated after Thursday’s election that he would draw talent from all wings of the party for his shadow team. He is expected to offer jobs to figures from the centre-left such as Francis Maude in order to reach out to the "modernisers" blamed by some in the party for undermining Iain Duncan Smith’s two-year reign as leader.

There will likely be senior posts for shadow home secretary Oliver Letwin and shadow health secretary Liam Fox, who both backed his campaign for leader. Much Westminster speculation centres on the post he will offer David Davis, who was tipped as his biggest rival in the race for leader, but opted not to stand.