Duncan Smith seeks showdown

The embattled leader of Britain's opposition Conservative Party yesterday challenged his critics to bring their plotting to a head or put an end to weeks of back-stabbing and allow him to get on with the job.

Iain Duncan Smith said he would issue an ultimatum to rebels at a weekly meeting of Conservative members of parliament (MPs) tomorrow, telling them either to trigger a no confidence vote or "draw a line under this whole affair".

Duncan Smith took over as Conservative leader in 2001 after the party suffered a second electoral trouncing in a row, losing the dominance it had enjoyed in 20th Century British politics under leaders such as Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. But many Tories, as the Conservatives are known, see their leader as incapable of mounting an effective challenge to Prime Minister Tony Blair, and blame him for failing to capitalise on what has been the worst year of Mr Blair's six-year premiership.