UK:David Cameron has promised "the great Conservative fight-back" this week despite a poll suggesting British voters are eager for an early election and overwhelmingly expect Gordon Brown to win it.
Former Tory leader William Hague launched the party's conference yesterday with characteristic defiance, echoing shadow chancellor George Osborne's charge that Mr Brown is a "fake".
Mr Hague asked if the prime minister had the courage to call a snap election and insisted the Conservatives were capable of beating him if he did.
Mr Cameron could be battling for party as well as personal survival when he delivers what will unquestionably be the most crucial speech of his political life at the Winter Gardens on Wednesday.
While yesterday's Ipsos MORI poll put Labour seven points ahead, three polls in a week gave Mr Brown an advantage of 10 or 11 points and has prompted some commentators to speculate that a "landslide" Labour victory might not only destroy Mr Cameron's "modernising" leadership but also see his party fragment.
The expectation is that Mr Brown won't make a final decision until after the conclusion of the Tory conference. It is also thought that he will want to announce it to MPs when they return to Westminster next week.
Mr Brown's schedule for the next few days will further fuel the election fever, with the prime minister battling to dominate the news agenda as Mr Cameron sets out his stall for government.
Mr Cameron yesterday promised to present a coherent case for a change of government, declaring himself "really excited" at the prospect of an early contest. He told Mr Brown to "stop dithering" and name the day.
"He's got himself in a position where he either bottles it or he has given us a hell of a lot of notice of his intentions."
Mr Hague turned the spotlight on Labour's "broken promise" over an EU constitutional treaty referendum.
"If you say, as you do, that Labour ministers have got to honour their election manifesto to maintain the trust in politics, and if that manifesto contained, as it did, a solemn pledge to put the European constitution to a referendum, is it not the very opposite of honour and trust now brazenly and arrogantly to refuse to do so?"
Mr Hague also derided Mr Brown's claim to be "a conviction politician" in the style of Mar- garet Thatcher. "Could this be the same man who said the Thatcher government had failed to prepare our economy for the 1990s, who said the free market had failed, that we should nationalise multinationals, that Trident missiles put Britain at risk, called the City 'Britain's biggest casino' and fought tooth and nail against every one of Lady Thatcher's vital reforms?"
To laughter from the audience Mr Hague continued: "Well, yes it could. Oh yes, he has convictions - and if you don't like them, he has others."