David Cameron has suggested he would like to strap some of his former Cabinet colleagues on a raft and send them down a "very, very dangerous river".
The former prime minister warned that the Conservatives risked "slipping backwards" by moving away from the liberal agenda he championed as leader from 2005-16.
And he suggested that the administration that succeeded his last year needed to do more to present an "inspiring vision" to counter the appeal of Labour's Jeremy Corbyn.
Speaking to the Evening Standard after chairing a board meeting of patrons of the National Citizen Service (NCS) scheme, which he founded, Mr Cameron said: "It is very important that the Conservative Party doesn't slip backwards.
"The Conservative Party only succeeds if it is a party of the future.
"Modernisation isn't an event. It is a process. A political party should be asking itself all the time, 'Am I properly in touch with and reflecting the society and the country?'.
"I want us to go on being the open, liberal, tolerant party that we became post-2005 because I think that was part of our success."
Asked whether any of his former Cabinet colleagues could benefit from the kind of outward-bound courses which NCS provides, Mr Cameron said: "If it involved crossing a very, very dangerous river on a raft, I can think of a few I'd want to strap together."
Mr Cameron said that Tories needed to push their idealistic vision to counter Mr Corbyn's drive for younger voters.
"We on the centre-Right side of the argument have to have just as inspiring a vision - a more inspiring vision - of how you build not just a strong economy but a strong society and a better life," he said.
A lot of young Corbyn backers had "forgotten just how dangerous this full-on programme of nationalisation, state control and rampantly high taxes can be", he said.
Mr Cameron said he was halfway through writing his memoirs and was enjoying the process, even though it was "hard work".
He said he hoped they would be "a rip-roaring read".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel