Tory leader rejects calls to throw out Heseltine

Iain Duncan Smith has rejected calls to expel Lord Heseltine for urging a "mutiny" aimed at installing Kenneth Clarke as leader.

Although Mr Duncan Smith is furious Tory MPs were told to oust him by Lord Heseltine, the party leader believes that disciplining the former deputy prime minister would fuel the party's internal squabbles.

Lord Heseltine's call, in an interview with The Independent on Monday, also infuriated some grassroots Tories because his plan would deny them the ballot provided for under the party's rules.

Rebecca Batty, the deputy chairman of the Tottenham Conservative Association, said yesterday: "I personally want him kicked out ... He is a liability to any political party he belongs to other than the Michael Heseltine party."

The Conservative Way Forward group, whose president is Baroness Thatcher, called for Lord Heseltine to be deprived of the Tory whip in the Lords. Donal Blaney, a member of the group's executive, said: "If you have someone, no matter how eminent, launching a full-frontal personal attack – a mutiny – against the current leader, then they have got to be disciplined."

Lord Tebbit said: "Here is the Government wallowing in buckets of sleaze and up pops Michael Heseltine, the most notorious assassin of Conservative Party leaders. What he is actually doing is getting Tony Blair off the hook."

But Lord Heseltine told Today on BBC Radio: "It's no use simply putting your head in the sand and saying 'Kick out Heseltine'. I'm speaking for a huge number of people who voted Tory and no longer do so. We are 20 points behind where we need to be to have a ghost of a chance of winning the next election."