KENT’S Conservative MPs have blamed a flawed campaign and a failure to broaden the party’s appeal for their third successive general election defeat.

As the party faced up to another leadership contest, Conservative MPs were left to reflect on what might have been after coming tantalisingly close to pushing Labour off the political map of Kent altogether. Several expressed surprise at Mr Howard’s announcement that he intended to stand down.

Ann Widdecombe, re-elected as MP for Maidstone and The Weald, said there had been “tremendous flaws” in the Conservative campaign that had cost them the chance of gaining more seats.

But she warned the party against a prolonged period of navel-gazing about its future direction, saying it needed to learn how to relax and be more tolerant of differing views.

“We made progress and no-one can take that away from us. I do think there were tremendous flaws in the campaign and when you look at how close we got in some seats, just a little bit of tweaking in the right direction would have produced more progress,” she said.

The campaign was “too presidential” and failed to feature other shadow cabinet members. She also criticised the decision to focus on immigration and asylum so early in the campaign.

“There is no doubt it was a big issue on the doorstep but we did not want to be characterised as a bunch of racists...we should have seen that coming,” she said.

The party needed to avoid a protracted debate about its future direction. “In a way we are always debating our direction and we are going to have it all again. We have been denying the past instead of talking up the achievements we made in government.”

Ashford MP Damian Green, meanwhile, said the party had to broaden its outlook and present a more positive vision to voters.

Mr Green, seen as a moderniser and on the centre-left of the party, said: “We made a small amount of progress but nothing like enough. We need to present a more moderate and reasonable tone and make it clear that the Conservatives enjoy living in modern Britain, accepting that there are problems but that we are not just interested in the bad things in life.”

The party needed to offer more to women voters and to those people who traditionally voted Conservative in the past but no longer did so.

Faversham and Mid Kent MP Hugh Robertson said he took some encouragement from the party’s performance.

“Bearing in mind that Michael Howard only had 18 months as leader, our campaign was much more professional [than 2001] and if you look at where we were, we can take great heart. Michael Howard has done a fantastic job,” he said.