A defiant Michael Howard today defended the "brutal" sacking of his former deputy party chairman as the turmoil over the Howard Flight affair over-shadowed the launch of the Conservatives' proposed £460 million childcare package.

The Tory leader said that he had no regrets about the swift decision taken to sack Mr Flight and to ban him from standing for re-election, despite the furore that now threatens to derail the party's pre-election campaign.

Mr Flight was recorded at a public meeting last week suggesting that his party had a hidden agenda for spending cuts. A copy of that tape was passed to The Times and released on Times Online.

Meanwhile, Mr Flight was in his rural Arundel and South Downs constituency where a rift has developed between party officials and grass roots members as he attempts to save his political career.

Although Mr Flight enjoys support among local members, including the constituency party president Baroness O'Cathain, who has threatened to resign, officers have accepted Mr Howard's intervention and have organised a meeting to select a replacement candidate.

Mr Flight is challenging the legality of his snap de-selection but needs to obtain the signatures of 50 local party members to call the extraordinary general meeting.

Under the association's rules there should then be a 14-day notice period before it can be held. By then, a new candidate would be in place. Looking flustered, he told reporters today that it was "fairly unlikely" the association would have a new candidate in that period.

In London, Mr Howard launch of the party's new £460 million package to help working parents was overshadowed by the Flight affair.

The Tory leader said: "I don't regret the decision at all. This is not about the ability of people to express a different view from my own view or from the leadership of the Conservative Party. It is about the suggestion that the Conservative Party is saying one thing before an election and intends to do something else afterwards. That is not the case."

Asked whether the hard line taken against the popular MP had back-fired, he replied: "Not at all."

The party issued a brief one-page statement spelling out how the rules applied in Mr Flight's case. It said that under Rule 9 of Schedule 6 of the party's constitution a constituency association could only adopt a candidate whose name appeared on the party's UK parliamentary list. Mr Flight's no longer does.

Lady O'Cathain, a distinguished economist, described Mr Flight's treatment by the party leadership as "brutal" and backed his calls for an extraordinary general meeting of the constituency association to hear his case.

"I did, in a fit of anger, say that I was resigning but I was prevailed upon on Friday morning to stay on for at least another week but the jury is out on that one. I am having discussions at the moment," she told BBC Radio 4's The World at One.

She admitted that Mr Flight had made a "huge mistake" in his remarks and that he had been right to resign as deputy chairman. However, she stressed that he had not deliberately gone "off message" to embarrass the leadership.

"It is a Greek tragedy really. It is appalling because there was no malice aforethought in what Howard Flight did. He couldn't be more loyal," she said.

Greg Hurst, The Times's Parliamentary Correspondent, is in Arundel from where he described the rift in the local party.

He said: "The local feeling among rank-and-file members and the party president is that Howard Flight is a popular, hard-working MP and they back him. Ordinary members of the association think that the decision on who stands as their candidate should be theirs and not Michael Howard's.

"However, the officers have accepted Mr Howard's intervention and as an election is imminent they are getting on with the process of looking for a new candidate.

"Howard Flight is trying to stop this process by calling an extraordinary general meeting and he is confident he will quickly be able to get the 50 names he needs. However, with the pressure of time it's difficult to see how he will be able to stop the process. He can not be the official Conservative candidate if he has had the whip withdrawn."

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