Maude managed Michael Portillo's unsuccessful bid for the Conservative leadership in 2001, after which he declined a front bench role under the new Party Leader Iain Duncan Smith. He was considered to be a 'moderniser' and on the centre-left of the party, writing in "The Daily Telegraph" (24 June 2002), he said that the Conservative Party's electoral problems had been caused by its failure to "look and sound like modern Britain". Norman Tebbit's secretary, Beryl Goldsmith, criticised Maude after this, asking: Outside the Shadow Cabinet, Maude founded Conservatives for Change, "CChange", becoming its first chairman. "CChange" was designed to promote the modernisation of the Conservative Party. Around the same point he also founded Policy Exchange.