The Tories' green oak tree logo has turned a more traditional shade of blue as an embattled David Cameron seeks to reassure Conservative activists that he is not abandoning the party's core values.
A year after the controversial doodle replaced the party's traditional red white and blue flaming torch of freedom, it has lost its environmentally friendly green leaves.
The blue-sky version of the logo was unveiled earlier this week when William Hague, the party's foreign affairs spokesman, published a "plain English guide" to the new EU treaty and promised that the Tories would mount a vigorous campaign for a referendum.
The colour change comes after Mr Cameron has endured the worst spell of his 20-month leadership, with a series of attacks by traditionalists on his leadership style, polls showing him falling behind Labour and setbacks in two recent by-elections.
The "vote blue, go green" oak tree logo has been one of the most visible demonstrations of Mr Cameron's attempts to move the party back to the centre ground and show voters that it is no longer the "nasty party".
However, a former party chairman, Lord Saatchi, said last week that "nicey-nicey" campaigns were no substitute for firm policies on the economy, while a former donor Sir Tom Cowie has accused the Mr Cameron and those around him of "old Etonian arrogance" in ditching long-held policies such as grammar schools.
Designers were paid £40,000 last summer to replace the torch with the oak tree logo, which party officials said it represented "strength, endurance, renewal and growth" while underlining Mr Cameron's environmental credentials.
The torch had been criticised as resembling communist iconography - a charge the party had denied.
Labour, however, has decided to lay claim to a symbol on prominent display when Margaret Thatcher was leader - the Union Flag.
It was the backdrop at the special conference where Gordon Brown was elected Labour leader in June.
The latest version of the Tory logo retains the scribbled tree shape, but projected on to it is blue sky, with clouds and sunlight.
A Tory official denied that the new version was intended to appease disgruntled traditionalists and insisted that it was always intended to be a flexible design - which could change to reflect the seasons and particular events.
At the party's spring conference, the tree logo was covered in blossom, while at the party conference last October it was given an autumnal tinge.
However, the official party logo would remain a tree with green leaves and blue trunk.
Lord Tebbit, a former party chairman, said when it was launched, that it looked more like a "bunch of broccoli" - which reminded him of the fiasco when British Airways decided to reject its traditional British image on the tailfins of its planes.
Other party activists said it looked "like a three-year-old has been let loose with a crayon" or the "the coin scratch on a lottery card".
