Bitter Tories blame 'chums' for electoral setback

London: Angry Conservatives are telling their party's leadership that David Cameron must break up his "chums' circle" and bring in the veterans, who were largely excluded from the election campaign.

Amid mounting recriminations over Cameron's failure to secure an overall parliamentary majority, Tory anger has turned to the tight circle that ran the campaign and the relatively inexperienced shadow ministers who tried to sell the Tory message on television.

Conservative officials, who will start to be laid off on Wednesday, turned on the party's director of strategy, Steve Hilton, on Friday.

Hilton is blamed for the "big society," the party's central campaign message about embarking on the biggest devolution of power in a generation.

The theme is being dubbed by senior party figures as "gimmicky nonsense".

Lord Ashcroft, the party's billionaire donor who masterminded the Tories' campaign in the marginals, has turned his sights on the communications chief, Andy Coulson.

The former editor of the News of the World was the strongest advocate of the leaders' television debates.

One senior Tory said: "If we had not had the television debates we would now be in government with an overall majority. Debates, plus big society and gimmicky nonsense equals a hung parliament. No debates, plus core message and proper politics, would have equalled victory."

Tories are voicing their anger in private because they do not want to jeopardise the negotiations with the Liberal Democrats. But the ConservativeHome website has reportedly compiled a critique of the party's general election campaign to be released once it is clear whether the Tories are entering government or, in the event of a Lib-Lab deal, remaining in opposition.

The Conservative Home postmortem was reportedly based on lengthy interviews with key players, and expected to criticise Hilton and Coulson.

It was also expected to say Cameron must adopt a more collegiate style of leadership.

Senior Tories were echoing this as they said Cameron could no longer rely solely on the likes of George Osborne the shadow chancellor, Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary, and Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture secretary.

"If David Cameron becomes prime minister he will have to widen his cabinet because the shadow cabinet does not enjoy the confidence of the party," one well-placed Tory said.

"These are the gang who told us to shut up because they knew how to win. Well that didn't happen."

The source added: "The Stalinist control of the leadership meant that only four and a half people were allowed on television during the campaign."