Bloodletting means challenge to leader will come sooner

Will there ever be a month, or even a week, between now and the next general election when political reporters and commentators do not have cause to write of blood letting in the Conservative Party? At this rate, there cannot be much more left to shed before the patient bleeds to death. Since last July, when the previous party chairman, David Davis, was sacked, there has been one crisis after another. Each has been entirely self-inflicted by Iain Duncan Smith, who is clearly something of a masochist.

But with so many Tory MPs away for half term this latest storm will turn into a hurricane when the Commons resumes on Monday. The likelihood is that the week ahead will be even more bruising, culminating in a massive row at the backbench 1922 Committee on Wednesday. Now that Michael Portillo has broken cover, the stage is set for his supporters, such as Francis Maude, Archie Norman and John Bercow, to fan the flames.

The dismissal of the chief executive, Mark MacGregor, has fuelled speculation on Mr Duncan Smith's future. Meanwhile, the authority of his chairman, Theresa May, in post for less than seven months, has been fatally undermined.

If the removal of Mr MacGregor, a Portillista, was designed to shore up Mr Duncan Smith's position among his traditional hard-core supporters the opposite effect has been the outcome. Mr Portillo's dramatic intervention will guarantee acres of weekend media speculation. Mr Duncan Smith therefore ends a week in which his attempts to focus attention on a tax-cutting agenda have been overwhelmed by the hopeless incompetence he displayed on the Radio 4 Today interview and, more importantly, by the withering attack from Mr Portillo. This action has reinforced the possibility of a leadership challenge. It is probably now inevitable. And while many will take at face value Mr Portillo's claim that he is no longer interested in the leadership, I can now imagine circumstances that might make worthwhile laying in a few extra telephone lines.

I do not know if Mr Duncan Smith employed anybody before he became party leader, but he certainly has no idea how to hire and fire – a pre-requisite for any potential Prime Minister. Harold Macmillan is alleged to have said that an essential skill for the job is to be a good butcher. When the leader visited Smithfield on Monday to protest about the congestion charge he might have asked the butchers for some advice.

Without consulting Mrs May – nominally Mr MacGregor's boss – Mr Duncan Smith ordered the Treasurer, Sir Stanley Kalms, to phone Mr MacGregor, who was in France, to tell him to return. Mr MacGregor asked why and was told "because Mr Duncan Smith wants me to fire you". The manner of this dismissal had echoes of the mess made when Mr Davis was fired while on holiday in Florida.

It seems impossible to believe that only 10 days ago an opinion poll was published showing the Tories just 1 per cent behind Labour. But any chance this might have formed a springboard to recovery has been gratuitously squandered.

There is simply no consistency of message. At first there appeared to be a coherent strategy that led to the "help the vulnerable campaign". This was followed by the appointment of Mrs May as chairman, leading to her much acclaimed "shoe speech" at the party conference when she tried to end the reputation of the Tories as the nasty party.

But less than a month later the resignation of John Bercow over the imposition of a three-line whip on gay adoption legislation meant that the nasty party was once again in the ascendant. It seemed that the traditionalists were getting their own back on what they perceived to be too much Portillista influence via Mr MacGregor. So the leader capitulated to his own original instincts and, as a consequence, became embroiled in the "unite or die" fracas that followed Mr Bercow's departure.

By this time, with the party in meltdown and Mr Duncan Smith already in leadership speculation territory, the "traditionalist" horses in Parliament who voted for Mr Duncan Smith were turning to Mr Davis, already bruised by the treatment he had received at the hands of Mr Duncan Smith in the summer. So Mr Davis has became a potential rallying point for these "traditionalists" who viewed Mr MacGregor's influence on the leadership as the cause of their loss of influence. This probably lies behind this flat-footed attempt to send out a signal to the traditionalists that Mr Duncan Smith is returning to his roots.

But events are now moving dangerously fast for the party leader. This will give encouragement to those who are not even prepared to wait until after the local elections in May before tabling a motion of no confidence. It is no longer fanciful to imagine the whole thing unravelling within weeks. Mr Portillo may not end up as leader but his intervention will certainly kill Mr Duncan Smith.

Andrew Grice is away