Conservatives: Upbeat and optimistic

Despite Robert Kilroy-Silk's vow to "kill" the Conservatives, the Tories have bounced back with a renewed sense of purpose.

Speaking at the UK Independence Party's conference last Saturday, the high profile MEP grabbed the headlines with his call to take on the Tories across the country.

But, while that rallying call added to Conservative gloom at the start of the week, the law of unintended consequences helped to ensure that by the close of conference on Thursday it was UKIP that was on the back foot.

Speaking to ePolitix.com ahead of the conference, Michael Howard had insisted the "dark days are over" for his party.

Those comments had come as the Tories slumped from second to fourth in the Hartlepool by-election and dropped to just 28 per cent in a Populus poll.

The Conservatives were doing even worse than this time last year, when the knives were out for Ian Duncan Smith despite him "turning up the volume" in his conference address.

And if the metaphorical dark clouds were gathering over Howard's first conference as leader, the real rain was also on its way.

The heavens opened on Monday morning as high winds lashed the coast, leaving delegates steaming in the bright lights of the Bournemouth International Centre.

As dripping journalists arrived in the pressroom there was a consensus that "even God hates the Tories".

But the news that chief UKIP funder Paul Sykes was switching his support back to the Conservatives left Kilroy-Silk floundering and his party struggling to contain its leadership rivalries.

And that, combined with a relatively coherent conference and the greater sense of purpose and unity that has been on display in Bournemouth, has left the party feeling more confident about its prospects.

"Today the sun has come out in Bournemouth and we are on our way," Howard said in his closing remarks.

And party chairman Liam Fox told delegates: "This was the week the Conservative Party got up off its knees."

Election expectations

But a successful conference does not guarantee an election victory.

Indeed, most analysts suggest that the Conservatives will still struggle to make major inroads into Labour's Commons majority.

But there is some hope for the party, if the "unbreakable" law of politics unveiled by Lord Saatchi holds true.

He insisted the formula "satisfaction equals performance minus expectation" would see the prime minister evicted from Number 10.

But if applied to the Conservatives, what would the formula suggest?

Howard's performance was judged to be strong and genuinely moving, but doubts remain about whether the general impression created by the party was one of being in touch with the views of modern Britain.

As for expectations, it could not get much worse for the Conservatives.

But that credibility gap, which they insisted applied to all politicians, was something the party tried consciously to address.

The Tories chosen theme song for the week was Elvis Presley's "A little less conversation, a little more action".

It's sentiment was picked up, without irony, in hours and hours of conference speeches, not least in Howard's main address.

"People are fed up with talk, they want action," he said.

So a reasonable performance minus expectations approaching the infinitesimal suggest the party is at least now in positive territory.

Howard's story

The finale of Howard's keynote conference address was an immigrant's tale of his family's escape from tyranny to a land of opportunity where he had climbed the ladder of meritocracy.

He did not say he had lived the British version of the American dream, but it was a phrase used by other party members.

The Tory faithful loved it and, more surprisingly, the newspapers did as well.

There was little mention of the apparent irony that as Howard extolled the virtues of haven Britain he was making it harder for future asylum seekers with harsh new immigration measures.

There were other echoes of American politics in the shape of the promise to adopt a homeland security minister and a range of Republican inspired measures in the "timetable for action".

But if Howard aspired to be more American it was at the expense of being a good European.

In a week when a European Commission map made Wales disappear, Swansea born Howard was keen to reverse the process for Wales and the rest of the UK.

If the Conservatives come to office, it seems increasingly likely that Britain would adopt the approach of George W Bush to a range of international commitments.

Under the Conservatives, the UK would walk out of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and unilaterally renegotiate key elements of its EU membership.

But it is an agenda Howard believes will bring him popularity at home if not abroad.

The Conservatives now feel more positive about their purpose, with a sense they now have the policies that will tempt back UKIP defectors and provide an alternative for those disillusioned with Tony Blair.

However it remains to be seen whether this will be enough to bounce the Tories up the polls and get anywhere near troubling Labour in the forthcoming general election.