The veteran Conservative MP Mr Peter Temple-Morris yesterday marked the final stage of this defection from the Tories to Labour with an attack on the "weak leadership" of Mr William Hague.
Mr Temple-Morris, who lost the Tory whip seven months ago after defying the party line on Europe and who has since described himself as an Independent One Nation Conservative, this weekend outlined to his constituency party and in interviews a series of fierce criticisms of current Tory policy.
He also made clear that, though he will stand down from his Leominster seat at the next election, he has no plans to resign and force a by-election immediately, despite a challenge from the Tory deputy chairman and former Northern Ireland Minister, Mr Michael Ancram, to test local voters' support for his decision to take the Labour whip.
Mr Temple-Morris, who backed Mr Kenneth Clarke for the Tory leadership, said what had forced him to break completely with the Conservatives had been the party's arm's-length policies on Europe and the single currency. The "last straw" had been Tory opposition last week to the government's Bill on prisoner releases.
Interviewed on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost, Mr Temple-Morris pulled no punches in his assessment of Mr Hague's performance. Though the Tory leader was "a very nice and intelligent man...his style of leadership is proving to be weak. He is not shaping up to those very elements which have brought John Major down and indeed Thatcher before - elements which take the Conservative party way away from the British people.
The criticism comp0letes a miserable weekend for Mr Hague, who spent the first anniversary of his election to the leadership in bed with flu after enduring a week of speculation of back bench plots against him.
The Tory former chancellor, Mr Kenneth Clarke, added to his woes by returning to the attack over the single currency, suggesting that his party leader had "rather impaled himself" on a hook with his policy of staying out of monetary union for at least 10 years and predicting a return to "a sensible policy" on Europe by the Tories shortly.
Mr Temple-Morris. Meanwhile, praised the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, whom he described as "without doubt the most exciting political phenomenon on the European political stage".
Mr Blair in turn welcomed Mr Temple-Morris's decision "to put his faith and future in the Labour Party" and stresses his respect for the 60-year-old new recruit.