BRITAIN: Mr Michael Howard suffered a "double whammy" yesterday with the defection of a retiring Conservative MP to Labour and an opinion poll putting the Tories on course for their worst election result in a century.
The Conservative leadership was rocked by Mr Robert Jackson's declaration that victory for Mr Howard in the general election expected in May would mean "certain harm" for Britain.
At the same time, a Populus survey suggested an even greater defeat in store for the Conservatives than in 1997 and 2001 in what could be the party's worst showing in a national poll since 1906.
Conservative leader Mr Howard attempted to shrug off the defection of the veteran pro-European MP, who told The Sunday Telegraph he had decided to quit because the Tories had "dangerous" views on Europe, "incoherent" policies on the public services, and had "wobbled" over the war in Iraq.
A former supporter of Mr Kenneth Clarke, Mr Jackson had announced his intention to stand down at the next election just months after the 2001 campaign.
Ms Julie Kirkbride reflected the anger of Conservative MPs yesterday, suggesting that Mr Jackson might have been offered a peerage on becoming the fourth Tory MP to cross the floor of the House of Commons since Mr Blair became Labour leader in 1994. But Mr Jackson maintained he had only met Labour Chief Whip Ms Hilary Armstrong last Tuesday "to ask if I could join the party" and that the timing of his announcement was entirely his decision.
However, the effect was to overshadow Mr Howard's announcement of Tory proposals to save £35 billion by reducing government waste and to use the savings to reinvest in schools and hospitals, reduce government borrowing and cut some "unfair" taxes.
Mr Jackson's timing also diverted attention from the latest revelations about the collapse of trust between Chancellor Gordon Brown and Prime Minister Blair.
The latest disclosures from the sensational book Brown's Britain suggest Mr Blair sent three cabinet ministers in 2002 to tell Mr Brown he would stand down as Prime Minister if the Chancellor would persuade the Treasury to smooth the way to British membership of the euro.
The disclosure, in the Sunday Telegraph's continued serialisation of Mr Robert Peston's book, contradicts Mr Blair's assertion of last week that "you don't do deals over jobs like this". Ironically, as the Conservatives battled to use the Blair/Brown fallout to put the issue of "trust" in the prime minister centre-stage, Mr Jackson was telling his constituency chairman that he had come to "greatly admire" Mr Blair's leadership of the country.
Having backed Mr Blair in last year's row over university tuition fees, the former Thatcher government higher education minister wrote to Wantage Conservative chairman Mr John Griffiths: "The Labour government has acted in the national interest to secure the future of our universities - and the Conservative Party has committed itself to repealing these measures.
"The Conservative Party's hostility to Europe has now hardened to the point at which it advocates the unilateral denunciation of Britain's treaty obligations.
"I greatly admire Tony Blair's leadership of the country. He has risen above narrow sectional interests, and demonstrated real courage on both domestic reform and our country's international security."
Speaking on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost programme Mr Howard insisted: "Let's be realistic - the election is not going to be decided on the basis of what Mr Jackson did."
However, the Populus poll for the News of the World suggested it would not be determined either by the Blair/Brown feud, with support for Labour hardening in key marginal seats, and the Conservatives actually poised to lose ground to the Liberal Democrats.