DAVID CAMERON had to adjust rapidly to changing circumstances at his Conservative Party conference in Birmingham this week, as the financial tsunami from Washington broke over Britain's banking system.
He managed the task skilfully, backing off from a comprehensive attack on Gordon Brown's Labour government as he pledged to help it weather the storm, while simultaneously tackling the charge that he is a novice lacking sufficient experience to govern with the memorable line that this argument would justify Mr Brown ruling in perpetuity.
The new international economic setting has helped narrow the polling gap between the Conservatives and Labour, which looked insurmountable a bare two weeks ago. Voters are responding to Mr Brown's suggestion that he is best placed to see Britain through these difficulties and therefore deserves another term. As Mr Cameron put it, "experience is the excuse of the incumbent over the ages", recalling that the same argument was upended when Margaret Thatcher defeated James Callaghan in the 1979 election. He went with a self-portrait, emphasising his fiscal conservatism and commitment to sound money, social reform, strong families and low taxes. Deftly, he insisted that character and judgment trump experience in political leadership. And he sharply distinguished his leadership style from Mr Brown's, stressing teamwork, delegation and conviction rather than tactical calculation.
This was the first Conservative conference for years that foresaw victory, since an election is due by 2010 at the latest. With this demonstration that he can shift ground rapidly and appropriately, Mr Cameron earned himself a favourable conference reception and a good press in unpropitious circumstances. But the detailed policy content is much thinner than this. A running tension between the Conservative promise of improved social services and lower taxation gives Mr Brown purchase when he says this is a contradiction they cannot resolve in difficult economic times.
Mr Cameron has distanced his party from the Euroscepticism which has lost them votes over the last three elections. But he is still committed to holding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty if it is not ratified by the time he comes to power, and is under pressure to accept an advisory referendum even if it has been ratified, prior to renegotiating Britain's relationship with the European Union. This gives Ireland a clear political deadline to deal with the matter before that happens.