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Tory leader plans to quit
06/05/2005 16:31 - (SA)
London - Britain's Conservative Party leader, Michael Howard, said on Friday he plans to step down after the party suffered its third consecutive defeat at the hands of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party.
"I did not achieve what I set out to achieve," he told supporters.
Howard said he would stay on "until the party has had the opportunity to consider whether it wishes" to change the rules governing the choice of his successor.
But he said he planned to stand down "sooner rather than later".
"I want to avoid the uncertainty of prolonged debate about the leadership of the party," he told supporters in one of the Tories' newly gained seats in south London.
'Too old'
"I want the next Conservative leader to have much more time than I had to prepare our party for government."
Howard, 63 a former cabinet minister in Margaret Thatcher's government, said he would be 67 or 68 by the time of the next national election.
"That's simply too old to lead a party into a government," he said.
Labour won a historic third term in Thursday's election, though with a greatly reduced majority.
Under Howard, the Tories added more than 30 seats to their total of 160 in the last parliament, but failed to make an electoral breakthrough.
- AP
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