The Conservatives are planning a new campaign blitz in universities amid reports that some young Tory activists are disillusioned with the party leadership.

Senior Tory MPs are set to embark on a national tour of freshers' fairs in an effort to capture the support of a new generation of middle-class voters.

Today the Conservative Party appears paralysed

Rupert Darwall Former Tory adviser

News of the move comes amid reports that some young Tories are preparing to form a breakaway group - a suggestion dismissed by frontbenchers.

In a pamphlet to be published on Thursday, a former Conservative special adviser is set to accuse the party of neglecting its principles.

Reaching the young

Shadow cabinet ministers will be trying to cultivate a more positive image with their tour of student campuses when the university year starts this autumn.

David Davis, who now shadows the deputy prime minister, is understood to have come up with the idea before he was party chairman.

Now he has been dropped as chairman, it is unclear if he will still lead the campaign, which will be separate from the tour planned by party leader Iain Duncan Smith.

David Davis is behind the new tour idea

The Conservatives have toured universities before but this initiative is part of their new drive to reconnect with young voters.

In another project, monthly e-mail questionnaires are being sent to 4,000 youth organisations to gauge their views on key policy areas.

Despite those efforts, there are signs of unease among some young Tory activists.

On Tuesday, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that young Tories were talking of a split if the party did not change.

Net talk

About 50 young activists, including more than 12 candidates for the next election, had discussed setting up a group called the Start Again Party, said the newspaper.

Nick Weston, an unsuccessful Conservative candidate at the last general election, has registered a website called startagainparty.com.

We are changing the Conservative Party so it once again reconnects with the broad mass of the British people

Damian Green Shadow education secretary

But the site has yet to be built and there is no sign as to what its purpose might actually be.

Tory officials have tried to contact Mr Weston but his office says he is on holiday.

Shadow education secretary Damian Green on Tuesday dismissed reports of planned splits as just "talk".

"Anyone who shares moderate mainstream Conservative philosophies is now not just at home in the Conservative Party, but actually represents the main thrust of Conservative policy," said Mr Green.

"We are changing the Conservative Party so it once again reconnects with the broad mass of the British people."

Other prominent young Conservative activists say they have yet to meet anyone connected with any split plans - some even compare the reports to those about "encounters with aliens".

The stories are, however, being seen as evidence of the unease of some Tories that Iain Duncan Smith has so far made an impact on Labour in the opinion polls.

Party paralysis?

Rupert Darwall, who was special adviser to Norman Lamont when he was chancellor, is expected to criticise the party leadership in a pamphlet for right-wing think tank the Centre for Policy Studies.

"What amounts to a Vichy response to Blairism will not provide a basis to restore the credibility of the Conservative Party," Mr Darwall will say.

"The cause of the Conservatives' unpopularity, of the lack of respect for the party, is not any lurch to the Right but the dislocation between its policies and its principles."

Tory principles have not been made redundant, instead they have been neglected by the party, Mr Darwall will argue.

"Today the Conservative Party appears paralysed - trapped between the fear that Tony Blair has colonised its ideological heartland and the fear that Conservative principles are inherently unpopular," he will add.