Sussex MP Francis Maude today warned the Tory leadership it must work harder to shed the party's image as an exclusive club for "straight, white males".

The former Foreign Secretary said this stereotype must be destroyed if the Tories were to benefit from the Government's recent slump in popularity.

Mr Maude, who quit the Shadow Cabinet last year, said party leader Iain Duncan Smith had done "some good things."

But he warned Mr Duncan Smith must work faster to make the Tories look and sound more like Britain, with more women and ethnic minority MPs.

The Horsham MP said: "I do not have the confidence he has that simply relying on exaltation and encouragement is going to work "That's why I think there will need, eventually, to be intervention. The sooner it happens the better."

Mr Maude said he would be prepared to contemplate "positive discrimination" to alter the make-up of the Parliamentary party. This could involve all-women shortlists, for example.

He added: 'We need to see a bench of candidates - particularly to replace retiring MPs at the next election - who are genuinely much more like Britain.

"That is more women, some people from ethnic minorities, people from non-traditional Conservative backgrounds."

The MP added: "We have to broaden ourselves and show we are ready to break out of the stereotype people sadly have of us."