Almost 100 Tory MPs have been told to slip Boris Johnson's speech marking the Queen's Platinum Jubilee to plot aN election strategy as party chiefs fear scores of seats are vulnerable to Labour and Lib Dems.
The Prime Minister is due to lead special 'addresses to the Crown' in the Commons on Thursday as the UK prepares to mark 70 years of the 96-year-old Monarch's reign.
But CCHQ has ordered more than 90 MPs with marginal constituencies to attend a 'target seats launch event' the same day some 97 miles away in south-west Leicestershire's Hinckley.
The MPs' away-day, hosted by party chairman Oliver Dowden, will see activists game how the party can hang on its 2019 coalition as nerves jangle over a series of by-election defeats and May's disastrous local elections results.
But Tory backbenchers, already angry at the PM's faltering leadership and Downing Street's handling of the Partygate saga, have said "no one wants to go" and voiced frustration over the event's timing.
One MP told the Mirror it made the party look "desperate", adding: “After everything, including Partygate, the party is trying the patience of even the most true blue Tory by dragging them away to this corporate not-so-jolly.”
Another said: "It is astonishing as no one wants to go.
"It is a list no one wants to be on and it is typical CCHQ screw up - holding it on the same day as the Prime Minister’s Humble Address to the Queen for her Platinum Jubilee.
"They would be better off holding it at a weekend or recess and in Wakefield to support the by-election."
The Conservatives are defending two seats following scandals which saw the MP forced to stand down.
The first is in Wakefield, where former MP Imran Ahmad Khan quit after being found guilty of assaulting a 15-year-old boy, and the second in Tiverton and Honiton, where Tory Neil Parish resigned after being caught watching porn on his phone in the Commons.
It comes amid speculation that the under-fire PM is gearing up for an early general election, with the Tories recruiting press officers and campaign staff.
The opening line of one ad said: "CCHQ is building its Press team to fight the next General Election.
"This will be a long, hard-fought campaign and applicants should be under no illusions that the job will be 9-5, five days a week."
A Conservative Party source disputed the number of MPs said to be going to the event and claimed some information supplied was "wrong" as MPs had not "read the invite properly”.
It is understood the event couldn't be held in a by-election area, such as Wakefield, as it could tip party campaign spending over the limit.
