The Conservative party is poised to sell its ancestral home, the headquarters at Smith Square, for a £6m election fund boost, it emerged today.
The board of the Conservative party made the unanimous decision at a meeting this afternoon. It will sell the premises and move to more suitable premises as soon as possible.
A party spokesman said the decision was not purely financial but that the building was no longer deemed appropriate for a modern political party.
"It is a 1950s building with a Georgian facade and is not a suitable office environment for a party in the 21st century," he said.
"We have not identified a new headquarters, we do not even know where it would be or whether we would rent or buy."
Raymond Monbiot, chairman of the national convention and deputy chairman of the Conservative party, said: "The decision taken today is just one more element in streamlining the Conservative party machine for fighting the next general election".
Staff at central office were only told of the decision today, a party spokeswoman said later.
She said she had "absolutely no idea" how long was left on the lease of the building.
"We only heard about it today when we were presented with the decision of the board," she said.
In a similar cost-cutting exercise last year, the Labour party moved out of its notorious HQ in Millbank tower for a smaller, less prestigious office in Westminster, saving itself further money by redeploying non-essential staff to a call centre in North Shields.
Selling the lease on the iconic building on Smith Square - immortalised in TV images of Margaret Thatcher's and John Major's election victories - is expected to net the party around £6m.
That comes on top of the £2m pledged yesterday by former party treasurer Lord Ashcroft yesterday for local constituency campaigning funds.
The party has been based in Smith Square - a peaceful Georgian niche of Westminster with a chapel in the centre - for 45 years.
The building has a media centre and conference briefing room in the basement, with a press centre on the first floor.
Many of the party's grandees live in the narrow set of multimillion pound Georgian townhouses near central office, which is about a three minute walk to the Commons. It is also convenient for the TV broadcasters' Westminster base at number four Millbank.
The Liberal Democrats still maintain their base at nearby Cowly Street, a beautiful - if slightly impractical - converted townhouse in a quiet cul-de-sac.