Are the Tories over the worst of the wobble?

We are expecting at least one poll tonight, the YouGov tracker, and I think there will be one other. If these polls show the Tories ahead by six—a level that just last week was seen as rather disappointing—they will add to the sense that the Tories are over the worst of the wobble. Significantly, the Lord Ashcroft story, an irritating one for the party and particularly so today, is not being depicted as part of a Tories in crisis story. (One does wonder why Ashcroft didn’t choose to get the news out earlier after the Information Commissioner ruled at the beginning of February that the Cabinet Office should reveal what undertakings Ashcroft gave when he accepted a peerage. The day after the leader’s spring conference speech was never going to be the best time to have this shoe drop).

Ben Brogan’s column in the Telegraph today is also important. Ben reveals that, on Wednesday night, Cameron’s closest colleagues told him he had to settle the debate over campaign strategy and that what we saw in Brighton at the weekend was the result of Cameron’s decision.