Cameron must hold firm – it is the only viable option he has

Last week’s YouGov/Channel 4 poll contained good and bad news for the Tories. On the one hand, their lead in the key marginal seats is better than it is nationally against Labour- as many positive Conservatives have been arguing in recent weeks. On the other hand, it is still not enough to secure an outright majority to form a Government. The reality is now sinking in that there were no rogue polls and that a hung parliament looks like a very real possibility. What an earth has gone wrong and what can the Tories do to recover their position?

The answer to what they should do is very simple: not a lot. They should continue with the highly detailed and well thought-out plan they have formulated to fight the election. Should David Cameron change course now, he would risk what I wrote about last week: being seen simply as a man who changes his mind depending on what he thinks people want him to say. In addition, he should be careful of the powerful force of momentum. There is a growing feeling that the Tories are on the back foot and their prospects declining. If Cameron panics and announces grand policies that conflict with previous ones, he risks providing further momentum to the decline. People like to get a call right, so I suspect this is what has been, in-part, behind the polls recently. Some people have been less likely to say they will vote Tory because of the relatively poor showing in the polls- they think voting Tory might be the wrong call, because they might not win.

It is impossible to know whether they will reverse the leaning of the polls at the moment, but holding firm is the only chance Cameron has. He and his team must be feeling, in private, very disillusioned. They ought not to be: the modernisation and detoxification of the Conservative brand were very much required. They would simply not be in contention if they did not carry this out. (This is not to say that I agree wholeheartedly with the Cameron strategy and policy, but more of that to follow I am sure, before polling day). The reality is that there are still great swathes of people out there, many of whom are very intelligent, right leaning and dislike the current government, but cannot bring themselves to cross the box next to the Conservatives. These people will take many more years to persuade, if they will ever be turned at all. Cameron needs to steer the same course and hold on in there. There is an awful lot to play for yet.