A referendum on Europe, tax breaks for parents, or just keep the party ship steady as she goes – leading and grassroots Tories tell Robert Watts what the party must do to counter the rise of UKIP

By Robert Watts, Deputy Political Editor

Sunday Telegraph – 5 May 2013

[ ... ]

Julian Lewis, MP for New Forest East:

"I think the party needs to remember what happened to Michael Foot’s Labour Party in 1983. Labour moved so far away from its mainstream supporters that the SDP was formed and as a result what would have been a comfortable victory for Margaret Thatcher turned into a landslide.

"Too often the Conservative leadership has taken the view that we must move to the centre because no one on the Right has anywhere else to go. Well, now they have got somewhere – they are going to UKIP."