Britain's once titanic Conservative Party will seal the fate of its enfeebled helmsman Wednesday in a vote of no confidence that he is not expected to survive bar a dramatic turnaround.

Iain Duncan Smith will make a last-ditch attempt to salvage his leadership of a party that dominated 20th Century British politics. But he faces the extraordinary prospect of being axed without getting the chance to fight a general election.

"Now is not the time to turn back," Duncan Smith wrote in Wednesday's Times newspaper. "I have no intention of walking away from my duty to my party."

But he acknowledged making mistakes and said: "It is my duty to address the shortcomings of my leadership."

Britain's best-selling tabloid Sun newspaper carried the front-page headline: ADIOS IDS.

The Conservative Party, which once boasted leaders like Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, has floundered since the demise of the "Iron Lady" and opinion polls put it far from power ahead of the next general election, expected in 2005.

Duncan Smith's leadership has been marred by back-stabbing from the outset, but talk of a plot to oust him reached fever pitch in past weeks as Conservatives despaired at his failure to capitalize on a dismal year for Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Duncan Smith Monday gave rebels 48 hours to muster the 25 names needed to trigger a no-confidence vote in a "back me or sack me" plea. The rebels chose the latter, producing the 25 names by early Tuesday and a vote was called.

In a final bid to save his skin, Duncan Smith will urge a committee of Conservative members of parliament (MPs) to back him at 1400 GMT Wednesday. A secret ballot will then begin, with the results expected shortly after 1900 GMT.

TORIES FACED WITH SEARCH FOR LEADER

After two election thrashings by Blair, the Conservatives will be casting around for its third leader since crashing out after 18 years in power in 1997, if Duncan Smith fails to secure support from a simple majority of his MPs.

Many Tories, as the Conservatives are known, speculated frenetically about the outcome of the vote in the corridors of parliament Tuesday, but even Duncan Smith loyalists recognized the odds were stacked against him.

Asked if Duncan Smith would win the vote, one senior Tory who staunchly supports him in public said: "Ask the next man, I have no idea."

"Given the mood of the parliamentary party, I think he's going to lose," said another MP, while the best supporters could say was that they "hoped" he would win. In the 2001 leadership contest, Duncan Smith won less than one third of support from MPs when he was up against Kenneth Clarke, a passionate pro-European, and Michael Portillo, an arch modernizer who had admitted to a gay experience.

The names of Clarke and Duncan Smith were then put to the party's grassroots activists -- aging and generally right-wing -- in the party's first open leadership ballot.

Duncan Smith won but many critics say the ex-military man was never up to the job. He was lacking in experience, in charisma and was a poor public speaker.

His failure to boost the Tories' poll ratings in a year when Blair has been dogged by the chaotic aftermath of the Iraq war was the final straw for disgruntled Tories.

They are already speculating about possible substitutes. Many are backing Michael Howard, their finance spokesman.

Heavyweights Clarke and Portillo, both former Cabinet ministers, have dismissed suggestions they will stand again.

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