The Blackpool weather often suggests some portent of the shape of things to come. In years gone by black, bursting clouds seemed routinely to greet John Major's arrival at the Winter Gardens.
Yesterday, unexpectedly, the riviera of the north-west was bathed in sunshine - and, if not exactly shining on him, the Sun newspaper certainly provided surprisingly welcome reading over breakfast at the Imperial Hotel. The paper which a year ago served him and his party up as a dead parrot thought, on reflection, perhaps it shouldn't have been quite so dismissive of the Conservatives. Mr William Hague, the paper said, had "shown resolute leadership and taken his party through 12 of its toughest months ever".
He might still end up sick as a parrot, time would tell, but the Sun `Wot won it' in 1992 told the gathering Tories they could do worse than treat their leader with a bit of respect. In fact they had no choice: "Hague may not be perfect, but he is the only man the Tories have got."
Hammering home the same message was a Guardian poll showing that the Tories would be even worse off under Michael Portillo. The ICM poll suggested three out of four Tory voters believed Mr Hague had no chance of winning the next election. No matter. With the press eagerly awaiting Mr Portillo's appearance on the conference fringe tonight, the Hague camp will also have been gleeful at Gallup's poll showing "the prince across the water" damaged by admissions about his past private life and lagging behind Mr Hague, Mr Kenneth Clarke and Mr Chris Patten (not even a potential candidate) in the leadership stakes.
To complete a triple helping of good news on day one of the conference, there was Baroness Thatcher holding forth in the Daily Telegraph - lambasting Mr Tony Blair's efforts to make Labour electable "one of the most shameful confidence tricks in British political history".
The outside observer might detect a bit of revisionism here. During the 1997 election it emerged that Lady Thatcher wasn't fearful about the prospect of a Blair government, indeed was confident (on Europe) "he wouldn't let the country down".
No matter: hell hath no fury like a woman duped. Here was the Baroness in full battle-cry against Mr Blair's Bournemouth "hymn of hate against Conservatism". The Lady mocked governments which "try to act like God" and prime ministers who think they "can achieve heaven on earth".
Prepared to give Mr Blair the benefit of the doubt and accepting his intentions high-minded, she warned: "That does not diminish the dangers with which such hubris threatens the country."
She continued: "If he believes that he personally is able to create a country in which there is no poverty, no hunger and no unhappiness, then he is somebody who should be watched - and closely."
Conservatives are still fuming about the rhetorical device by which Mr Blair contrived to link conservatives (and the Conservative Party) to events as disparate as the assassination of Martin Luther King, the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Some, like Lady Thatcher, believe the prime minister may have made a blunder of election-losing proportions with his declaration of war on "the forces of conservatism".
She was scathing in her rebuttal of Mr Blair's depiction of a century of decline: "For Mr Blair and his party, the heroism of our armed forces in two world wars, the relinquishing of empire and creation of a commonwealth of independent nations, the maintenance of Britain's constitutional stability and matchless rule of law, the retaking of the Falklands and our unique contribution to the defeat of communism - these things are mere historical detritus, to be swept into New Labour's all purpose political dustbin."
This defence of Conservative achievement - coupled with the assertion that Mr Blair's aim is "in a certain sense, the end of Britain" - was vintage stuff, enough to warm the heart of a party still ravaged by defeat. Nor is Lady Thatcher alone in thinking Mr Blair's speech presents Mr Hague with a glorious opportunity.
As Mr Hague ponders how to connect the past and the future, he will see the past again revisited tomorrow night - when Lady Thatcher joins forces with Lord Lamont to demand the release of Gen Pinochet, "Britain's only political prisoner". One fancies it will be Tony Blair, and not William Hague, cheering the Iron Lady from the sidelines.