Cameron: from Birmingham bounce to Clacton calamity?

History tells us that the Tories’ best chance of changing their luck is to change their leader

Columnist Don Brind

A week ago David Cameron was in clover: the Tory press were delighted with his Birmingham conference speech, and a YouGov poll was about to be released showing the Tories had overtaken Labour for the first time in more than two years.

Today, the “bounce” the PM enjoyed as a result of his tax-cutting pledges is already history: YouGov has Labour back in front by a point, enough to cost about 50 Tory MPs their jobs next May and give Labour a small majority in the Commons.

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is a former BBC lobby correspondent and Labour press officer who is watching the polls for The Week in the run-up to the 2015 election.