I hate to say it, but the Tories are sounding like a party heading for Government. While the Lib Dems have also done well in announcing some strong policies for the future, before conference season (a bit of a mistake, perhaps), the Tories have hit the nail on the head in getting their coverage at the right time. In the process they have already managed to thoroughly embarrass Labour on issues that Labour should traditionally be at the forefront of.

The Tories say they will scrap a third runway at Heathrow, as indeed do the Lib Dem's, Labour want to go ahead with this pandering to big business. The Tories say they will freeze council tax, and indeed the Lib Dems are going for the more radical, equitable and (in my opinion) better long term solution of local income tax. The Labour answer? To tax the poor more heavily and mangle together a solution to that blunder when they're caught out, costing the tax payer even more.

Hell, the Tories are even manage to bring out a better "barely-policy" in offering teacher training to ex-soldiers, much more interesting than Brown's pre-conference "extra year of free nursery places" pledge.

The case is clear, while I won't discount the strength of Lib Dem proposals they did not get their announcements out at the right time (some would argue they would never have been able to), it is currently the Tories that are fighting fit on the political stage. Some, myself included, argued that their policies were non-existant and that they had little to offer. So far the conference has shown they are more than just riding on the coattails of a spasming Labour party, they are using it as a springboard.

More importantly, what they are saying is clearly carefully tuned to the middle ground audience that voted emphatically with Labour back in 1997. This isn't a Tory party fighting with promises of Tax cuts and hoping that the upper classes will carry them through once more; with more being offered now towards greens, liberals, and even lefties of a certain disposition I can certainly see a strengthening of their position occurring. Of course we have to be realistic, if you're the sort to be against the Heathrow expansion you're probably still better voting Green, and why anyone would vote for Osbourne as economic guru when Cable is clearly a better fit to the role is beyond me.

But this is the sort of conference that I think Labour were really dreading, one where their main opposition comes out and actually, despite all feelings otherwise, appears to be quite confident and...at least in a mainstream view...competent too. Scary times.