THE TORIES seem to have their tails up for the first time in this election. Central Office types claim morale at Command HQ is better than at the time of the last election, in 1992. A former minister - a wise and shrewd fellow, with no wish to be seen to be spectacularly wrong - insists Mr John Major is set to defy the odds and win a fifth Conservative term.
From marginals in Middle England comes steady insistence that the "switchers" may be switching back, and that there is all to play for. The opinion polls cast confusion - but no matter that surveys suggesting a dramatic cut in Labour's lead are flatly contradicted by others showing Mr Tony Blair with an advantage of 20-plus points: from such diversity springs Conservative hope. "They got it wrong in 1992 and could do so again" is the ever-optimistic refrain.
None of this is to say the Tories might not be deluding themselves or that Mr Blair's seemingly Unstoppable victory is suddenly in doubt. But that the Tories should be capable of generating such a mood is remarkable in itself, given the depths of despair to which they were reduced barely a fortnight ago.
Their insistence that they can't be counted out is a useful check on the widespread assumption - surely a dangerous thing with so long still to go - of a Labour landslide. And it coincides with Labour's worst week of the election campaign.
We must of course keep all in perspective. Sudden mood-swings are an inevitable feature of election campaigns. As Mr Major knows only too well, the modern media crave novelty and excitement. And the history of the parliament formally dissolved this week is of endless much-vaunted, and failed, Conservative fightbacks.
Yet this has been a difficult week for Mr Blair. Not dire. Not calamitous. But decidedly difficult. And the New Labour leader looks troubled.
As well he might. For the purposes of this election, Mr Blair is New Labour. Despite those wild fluctuations, the message of the polls is that he still enjoys a commanding lead. It may well be the role he prefers, but Mr Major is still, in fact, the underdog. The election remains Mr Blair's to lose.
What a frightening responsibility. So close to power, after 18 years in the wilderness. One wrong move, one spectacular gaffe and he might yet contrive to blow it. It's enough to give the most hardened campaigner sleepless nights. And the Labour leader and his advisers must have clocked up quite a few tortured hours since last Friday. For the policy "wobble" which began in Scotland has continued more or less unabated throughout the week.
True, so-called Tory "sleaze" has helpfully intervened to mask some of Mr Blair's problems. Enraged by the emergence of a veteran BBC reporter as white knight, the Tatton Tories defied Mr Major, endorsed Mr Neil Hamilton as their candidate, and obliged the Prime Minister in turn to rally to the former minister at the heart of the "cash-for-questions" controversy.
It remains to be seen if the media can maintain, or justify, a relentless focus on Mr Martin Bell's "anti-corruption" bid to unseat Mr Hamilton. Mr Major is certainly determined that the entire campaign cannot be "hijacked" by one constituency. And there is strong evidence that sleaze is of less concern on the doorsteps than among the members of the Westminster chattering class.
We could hardly expect Mr Major to share our enjoyment of that high-noon confrontation between Mr Bell and Neil and Christine Hamilton. The ambush on the heath provided the most memorable and gripping images of the week. It also provided a rare event in British election campaigns - a genuine, unscripted news event beyond the reach of the control freaks and spin doctors who mind the party leaders.
However, Mr Hamilton's refusal to go away was not enough to eclipse the end-of-week conclusion that, while still set to win the election, Labour might be in the process of losing the campaign.
To Mr Major's delight the Tories have managed a sustained focus on "the issues". Party insiders echo his claim that "every time policies come under sustained examination they (Labour) fall apart." And it must be said that Mr Blair has not impressed when questioned at close quarters.
The Tories, needless to say, have no time for such mealy-mouthed descriptions. They depict the Labour leader as "shifty". But impartial observers say this is wrong, and that Mr Blair still comes across as honest and wanting to be open with the electorate. However, that desire for openness has been accompanied by a hint of fear, a definite look of anxiety.
The press caught the first whiff of it during Mr Blair's trip to Scotland. That now-famous interview in the Scotsman had alerted the locals, who grilled the Labour leader mercilessly about his attitude to Scottish devolution. Mr Blair's demeanour made it plain he simply couldn't understand their obsession with a single issue. The Scottish press fancied it understood Mr Blair only too well.
Mr Blair's enthusiasm for a fully-fledged Scottish parliament was already in doubt, following last year's U-turn when he decreed the promised referendum would invite Scots separately to decide if they wanted the parliament, and if they wanted it to have tax-raising powers. Now here he was, hammering home the message that, while he would campaign for the tax-raising power to be granted, Labour would not avail of it.
Mr Blair was logically quite correct to draw a distinction between the provision of a power, and Labour's approach as a party to taxation policy. But given the continuing strength of Old Labour north of the border, many questioned whether Mr Blair could so overrule the local leadership in the future Edinburgh assembly.
The reliability of his "no tax rise" assurance was further undermined by Mr George Roberston's earlier suggestion that, under proportional representation, Labour would have to rule in Scotland in coalition with others.
But the real damage was less in the detail than the rhetoric. Mr Blair appeared to liken the proposed parliament to a parish council. And he attempted to answer the West Lothian Question with the crass assertion that sovereignty would remain with Westminster and with him "as an English MP".
Quite. The Tories were instantly crowing: "From powerhouse parliament to parish council ... , from powerhouse to poorhouse. Mr Blair was relieved to return to England. But not for long, for New Labour was about to signal its most spectacular u-turn, embrace the flagship of the Thatcher years, and finally drop its historic objection to privatisation.
Monday morning brought headline treatment of Mr Robin Cook's toughening-up of Labour's attitude to the Single Currency, apparently ruling out British membership for the lifetime of the next parliament.
But the biggest focus was on the news that the shadow Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, was considering the privatisation of assets, land and buildings worth millions of pounds.
In a keynote speech the same day Mr Blair told the City: "Where there is no overriding reason for preferring the public provision of goods and services - particularly where those services operate in a competitive market - then the presumption should be that economic activity is best left to the private sector with market forces being fully encouraged to operate.
Labour made it clear it would consider sell-offs, including the National Air Traffic Control system, which it had previously opposed. A jubilant Chancellor Clarke called them unprincipled scoundrels. Having lambasted the Tories for selling off the family silver, here they were checking to see what was left worth flogging.
It was, in truth, the logical extension of Mr Blair's successful abolition of Clause 4. It was the logical extension of New Labour's embrace of conservative economic orthodoxy ... pity they hadn't explained that to transport spokesman Andrew Smith, who six months earlier valiantly declared "our air is not for sale". A pity more crucially, perhaps, that they made no reference to this plan in the manifesto produced just days before.
The Tories have seized on this apparent strategic error, claiming the Labour manifesto is "falling apart" and eagerly turning the "trust" issue back on Mr Blair. Was the change on privatisation a U-turn too far? Mr Blair's determination to change Labour has won him rave reviews and record poll ratings. But suddenly he finds himself at the receiving end of public cynicism. Why should they trust a man who has changed so much?
In fact, well-informed sources insist there was no error, that the privatisation change was one of a number scheduled for the remainder of the campaign. While this u-turn looked like a panicked response to Tory claims of a "black hole" in Mr Brown's spending plans, sources say it was planned months ago. Labour's intention it is said, was to maintain the election initiative. The surprise, apparently, is that they find themselves accused of U-turns, and of evasion for moving beyond the manifesto.
How any of this plays outside the M25 is anybody's guess. For the first time, Mr Blair appears vulnerable. An already defensive Labour campaign may well become even more so. But we should remember that defensiveness is born of the knowledge that it is theirs to lose.
The old saying is that elections are not won in the four weeks of a campaign but in the two years before the election. On which basis, we must soberly assess the likely impact of one week of bad publicity for Mr Blair against 100 weeks of mauling in the press for Mr Major.
And even at this writing comes the news that the Conservative Party has not abandoned its bad old ways. Mr Major's troops are wobbling once more over Europe.