The road to revival

Iain Duncan Smith is fatter and pinker in the face these days, perhaps the result of too many dinners. He is more assertive. Media training over the summer has given him a certain bravado and made him more tactile. He looks people in the eye more often. His handlers were pleased by the way he dealt, in difficult circumstances, with Sir David Frost last weekend and a no-holds-barred Richard Littlejohn interview on Sky this week. Never has he been more upbeat and hopeful than before this Blackpool party conference. For some months now, Duncan Smith has been convinced that October 2003 would mark the turning point in Tory fortunes and bring an end to his two-year ordeal. He believed that it would resolve once and for all the mutterings about his leadership and provide a platform for a massive Tory revival in the polls.

The basis of this confidence was neither trivial nor unreasonable.