Mr Portillo, the darling of the Euro-sceptic wing of the Tory Party, pins part of the blame for the Conservatives' current problems on the former prime minister.

"There were two Margaret Thatchers," he writes in this week's issue of The Spectator magazine, "cautious until 1987, and reckless thereafter."

His comments come in a review of a new book on the Tory Party since 1830, An Appetite For Power, by history professor John Ramsden.

Baroness Thatcher: Became "reckless"

Mr Portillo's very presence, to speak at a fringe meeting, almost destabilised the party's annual conference last month as speculation and accusations of his leadership ambitions swirled around Bournemouth.

In his book review this week, he does not exactly look on the bright side of life for current party leader William Hague.

The ex-cabinet minister - who lost his previously super-safe Enfield seat at the last election - says Mr Hague has yet to find a way attracting back lost Conservative voters, never mind winning over Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters.

"Most of what we are now experiencing has happened before," Mr Portillo writes, but adds that it has never happened all at the same time.

On the Bournemouth fringe: His very presence almost destabilised this year's party conference

"To go down to such a savage defeat and be split and be broke and disorganised and face changes in the electoral system, does seem like a cocktail of all our worst experiences stirred together."

Lady Thatcher's "reckless period" following her third election win in 1987 included her pushing through the unpopular poll tax despite warnings from colleagues, having ever more rows over Europe, and suffering a string of heavyweight resignations from the cabinet by ministers complaining of her refusal to listen.

But in his review Mr Portillo disputes the notion that fighting on the political centre-ground is the way forward to a Tory recovery.

Instead, he has a swipe at senior pro-European, One Nation Conservatives: