The hoodie-hugging, Polly-praising, huskie-drawn days are over. The Tories are back

For a party still facing defeat at the next general election, the Conservatives left Blackpool feeling remarkably upbeat. ‘It’s the spirit of Gallipoli,’ said a veteran of William Hague’s election campaign. ‘They’re united against Brown,’ mused one shadow Cabinet member. Neither image is quite right. This was no deluded optimism, no awestruck reaction to David Cameron’s speech. The mood at the conference had changed long before he stood up on Wednesday. Something had gone badly right.

The week started with the party in a murderous mood, with talk at the candidates’ party centring on who would replace the evidently doomed Mr Cameron. He had focused too much on image, ran the draft postmortems, without explaining what a Conservative government would do. Parliamentary candidates complained they had no ammunition when they went on the doorsteps, that they would struggle to give a reason for people to vote Tory. 

By Monday, it was clear that all this was to change.