The Conservative leadership yesterday launched itself into a frenzy of self-reproach as it struggled to shed the image of Britain's "nasty party" which has sunk into corruption, incestuous feuding and the electorally disastrous exclusion of women and minorities.
As Tory activists gathered in Bournemouth for what Iain Duncan Smith regards as his make-or-break conference as leader, his newly appointed chairwoman, Theresa May, set the tone with a remarkable de nunciation of the party's past sins - still "unrepentant, just plain unattractive".
"Yes, we've made progress, but let's not kid ourselves. There's a way to go before we can return to government. There's a lot we need to do in this party of ours. Our base is too narrow and so, occasionally, are our sympathies, You know what some people call us: the nasty party," Mrs May told a stunned conference.
As a shadow cabinet colleague, Oliver Letwin, denounced the party's "weird" reliance on white, male MPs, another measure of the desperation which grips the Tories 16 months after their second crushing election defeat came from a former party research chief.
Andrew Lansley, the MP for South Cambridgeshire who was one of the "Portillista" modernisers who refused to serve in the Duncan Smith team, uses an article in today's Guardian to urge the leadership to consider changing the party's name to Reform Conservatives, an implicit tribute to Tony Blair's New Labour.
Though the Tories also unveiled policy initiatives, notably a pledge to reimburse older people who pay for operations rather than wait in NHS queues, their search for a political makeover focused on the politics of gender, race and sexuality as well as what Mrs May admitted had been their "demonising" of minorities.
In one extraordinary passage, Mrs May excoriated - without naming them - the Archers, Majors and Edwina Curries whose escapades have mired the party yet again as it struggles to recover.
"In recent years a number of politicians have behaved disgracefully and then com pounded their offences by trying to evade responsibility. We all know who they are. Let's face it, some of them have stood on this platform," she said.
Accusing some colleagues, also unnamed, of trying to "make political capital out of demonising minorities", she charged others with indulging themselves "in petty feuding or sniping instead of getting behind a leader who is doing an enormous amount to change a party which has suffered two landslide defeats".
In another blunt reproach to entrenched attitudes, she admitted that constituency selection committees seemed to prefer candidates they would "be happy to have a drink with on a Sunday morning" - the negation of the meritocracy the party claimed to espouse.
"At the last general election 38 new Tory MPs were elected. Of that total only one was a woman and none was from an ethnic minority. Is that fair? Is one half of the population entitled to only one place out of 38?" she asked.
On the conference fringe, the former chancellor, Kenneth Clarke, clashed with rising star John Bercow over gay marriage and repeal of section 28. Though "naturally onside" for the modernisers' agenda, Mr Clarke, still a leadership contender in waiting, said he would not vote for either as a symbol of reform.
Harsher words were exchanged at an equal opportunities commission fringe meeting where two senior Tory women clashed over affirmative action to ensure more women and MPs from ethnic minorities, a policy widely endorsed by most speakers yesterday.
Pamela Parker, who chairs the Tory Women's organisa tion, told delegates she opposes positive discrimination and suggested that the lack of women in public life is caused by a shortage of women putting themselves forward.
"It is insulting to suggest women need special help. We are achievers in our own right," she said. Christina Dykes, the party's director of development and candidates, flatly contradicted her.
Mr Lansley, a former aide to Norman Tebbit, was booed by some male delegates when he called for an A list of candidates for winnable seats, half of whom would be women or from the ethnic minorities.
The MP warned them that if they get it wrong this time the party will be saddled with unrepresentative MPs for a further 10 or 15 years.