BRITAIN:DAVID CAMERON will aim to seal the deal with British voters next week with a conference performance combining sustained criticism of Gordon Brown's stewardship of the economy with the assurance that he is ready to succeed in office.
The Conservatives will converge on Birmingham tomorrow confident for the first time in more than a decade that they are poised for a return to government. But the warning has gone out from the Tory high command that this will not be an occasion for either celebration or complacency.
In a pre-conference interview with Sky News, Mr Cameron said: "I think on a range of issues people can see a clear, united Conservative Party that is an alternative to a government that has failed. And that's what they are going to see, I believe, in Birmingham next week."
Knowing that a general election victory is not yet "in the bag", and to underline their serious intent, Mr Cameron has cancelled an opening-day event originally intended to highlight this year's Conservative successes in the local and London elections.
Instead conference planners have scheduled an emergency debate on the economic crisis that will feature shadow chancellor George Osborne ahead of his main platform appearance on Monday.
As he flew to Washington yesterday for talks with President George Bush, beleaguered prime minister Gordon Brown received a second bounce in the aftermath of Labour's Manchester conference - this time from a poll for the BBC's Daily Politics programme, suggesting people would rather have Gordon Brown and chancellor Alistair Darling currently in charge of the economy than Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne.
An earlier instant poll for the Sun newspaper following Mr Brown's conference speech on Tuesday suggested he had succeeded in reducing the Conservative lead to 10 points.
Polling experts largely discount such findings, however, predicting that Mr Cameron can expect a similar post-conference bounce, with the important underlying indicators more likely to be found in the post-conference season polls come November.
In his political briefing in the London Times yesterday, however, the respected Peter Riddell said the evidence of a Populus pre-conference poll suggested some "softness" in the Tory ratings.
Just 56 per cent of Tory supporters described their choice as "a positive vote" for the party, while 44 per cent said it was more a vote against the Labour government, whereas 81 per cent of Labour support was positive, with only 19 per cent registering a vote against other parties.
According to Populus, only 28 per cent of voters believe the Conservatives really have changed, as against 70 per cent who do not and who think Mr Cameron's lead is mainly down to the unpopularity of the Brown administration.
Mr Cameron sought to exploit continuing Labour unease about Mr Brown's leadership yesterday, insisting the prime minister's suggestion that this was no time to have "a novice" running the country was clearly a reference to Labour leadership pretender David Miliband. Mr Cameron also dismissed Mr Brown's jibe about his willingness to be photographed and filmed with his family, saying: "My family is the biggest thing in my life and that's why I have done what I've done, and if the prime minister wants to have a go, well fine, that's life."
Further evidence of increasing preparation for a possible Conservative government comes with the reinstatement of the once-traditional Irish Embassy party.
Ambassador David Cooney will host a reception in Birmingham on Tuesday - the first such for the main opposition party during conference since 1998.
Tory sources refused to comment on speculation that Mr Cameron and Reg Empey might make an announcement about the ongoing negotiation of a possible Ulster Unionist merger with the Conservatives.