Tories challenge Duncan Smith over appointment of right-wing chief

Conservative Central Office denied there was a crisis at the top of the party yesterday as members of its ruling board challenged Iain Duncan Smith's appointment of a right-wing chief executive.

The Tory leader upset modernisers last week when he removed Mark MacGregor, a leading moderniser and Michael Portillo supporter, and appointed Barry Legg, a former MP, to the new joint role of chief of staff and chief executive.

The party was plunged into more confusion last night as Mr Legg was forced to deny claims that he had held talks with the United Kingdom Independence Party before the last election.

The UKIP claimed he spoke to them three times about joining them. Mr Legg said: "This is complete and utter nonsense. I have always been a Conservative and always will be."

In a direct challenge to Mr Duncan Smith's authority yesterday, some board members agreed to call for the two roles to be split, arguing that the new post was unworkable. Seven members of the board, who were furious at the leader's failure to consult them over the changes, met unofficially to discuss whether the constitution of the party had been breached.

Theresa May, the party chairman and a key ally of Mr MacGregor, won the backing of board members after speculation that she was to be moved in a forthcoming reshuffle of the Shadow Cabinet.

Modernisers' fears about the direction of the party were underlined yesterday when John Redwood praised the leadership for its changes and said he would be "happy" to take a role in the new structure.

John Bercow, the MP for Buckingham who quit the Shadow Cabinet last year, said: "I am very concerned about what looks like a lurch to the right... and such a strategy would be doomed."

Mr Redwood said he believed Mr Duncan Smith was right to move away from the "touchy-feely" agenda and shape a team around him which could take the party on to the "next stage" of its comeback. "This is Iain Duncan Smith saying that the narrow modernising has to be broadened and deepened," he told BBC Radio 4's PM programme.

Mr Duncan Smith said yesterday that "no one is slightly interested" in the internal workings of the party. A senior spokesman added that Mrs May was holding "one-to-one chats" with members of the board over the next few days.