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OK, so it was a very fine speech – and God knows, they needed one to inject some life into the Conference of Doom. But when Mandy is your saviour, you really know you’re buggered. After all, Mandy was both creator and destroyer of new Labour. First, he span out of control to forfeit the confidence of the media and the public. Then he blew oxygen onto the sparks of the Blair/Brown hatred. He resigned twice in disgrace. He epitomised the lost promise of 1997. So how appropriate that Lord Mandy should now cast a little false hope to the Walking Dead at Brighton.

So Chloe Smith at 27 becomes the youngest Conservative MP for quite a while – since 1983, in fact, when I was also the youngest Tory at 27. Let that be a warning to you, Chloe!

Anyway, Chloe should be congratulated and the Tories are jubilant. But the steadier Tories are cautious too. The personal triumph for Chloe Smith was not as great victory for the Conservatives as appears at first sight – here’s why.

First, only 18% of voters bothered to turn out and vote Conservative in Norwich North. Those 13,591 people were fewer in number than voted Conservative in the 2005, 2001 or even the 1997 general elections.

In fact, the last time the Tories won the seat and a general election, in 1992, nearly twice as many people voted Tory in the constituency – and then, remember, the Conservatives only just scraped home in Norwich and the nation.

Of course, general election turnouts are higher than by elections. But check out the two big pre-1997 Tory by election defeats. In Staffs South East and the Wirral, Labour took the seats with massive swings of around 20% so and 50-60% of the vote on 60-70% turnouts – and those two seats had been considered safe Tory.

Chloe, by contrast, got well under 40% of the vote with just over a 16% swing  on a sub 50% turnout – and contrary to some reporting, Norwich North was not a safe Labour seat. It was and is a marginal which returned a Tory for most of the ’80s and ’90s. Labour, remember, were also hit by justified sympathy for Ian Gibson and Gordon Brown’s dysfunctional handling of the expenses issue.

Third parties, meanwhile, including UKIP and the Greens together polled more than a quarter of the votes. That figure strikes cold fear into the hearts of Tory strategists. They think the only thing that can rob them of outright victory next year is public disaffection with all the of the main parties manifesting itself in quirky third party votes.

I’m not so sure. Third party voting may be a factor in limiting Tory gains, but I don’t think it will be a major one. Few of the small parties really inspire and their showing drops off in general elections. I suspect people will show how pissed off they are by not bothering to vote at all. Public disaffection may have taken a sickening twist upwards since the expenses row, but it has been on the rise for years. General election turnouts peaked at 78% in 1992. Last time it was just a shade over 60%. I’m guessing not much more than 50% in 2010.

This should get David Cameron and the Conservatives thinking hard. The Norwich figures are horrible for Labour and not great for the Lib Dems. But they don’t show a people ready to be inspired by Cameron’s New Tories. Rather, the Tories now seem to be no more than the least bad option for many people.

Cameron has succeeded in changing the tone of the party and of course no-one should expect him to spell out every Tory policy before the election. But somewhere inbetween the broad feel of a party and the hard policy lies a sense of direction – what Blair’s mob used to call the “narrative”.

Thatcher had a narrative. Blair had it too. Cameron has it only in the sense that we all know he wants badly to win. I think people sense that and they’re not wholly comfortable with it. They’ve had it with the professionalised cadre of politicians for whom winning and power is the end, rather than the means to sorting the country out. It all links in uncomfortably in the public’s psyche with MPs ripping off  expenses.

So it’s Labour who are losing this election more than Cameron winning it. Like his role model, Tony Blair, before him, Cameron is very lucky politician. Like Blair, he’s lucky to have become leader at a time when the government is doing a pretty good job of opposing itself.

But if he was in a real scrap, being a great PR guy with the best media advice money can buy would not be enough. It certainly won’t be enough in government – as Cameron’s hero, Tony Blair, pretty quickly found out.

Forget the expenses stories which by comparison are small fry and really don’t effect ordinary people. Today we see that the record that Labour hold of leaving power with unemployment higher than when they took office is being maintained. Figures released today show that unemployment is now higher than when Blair took office (Things can only get better???) in May 1997.

Labour still isn't working

Just back from the count in Bassetlaw and wasn’t a fun time had by all. The amusing, “Who is their guy”… “Think he’s the bloke who stood at the General Election”, or the “Well we bucked the trend here” from Labour supporters really made me smile.

They didn’t get it. They had just lost 3 of their seats when we only really expected to take two. My good pal just missed out by about 60 votes and another by just over 100. My god what a blood bath that would have been. Then where I stood their majority was reduced from 1400 to just over 200.

Brown has led Labour party to the brink. Now all it will take is Mrs Kinnock and the soon to be enobled sugar to push them over the edge.

Shame eh!

Jonathan Sheppard

What better reason to Vote Conservative tomorrow than the thought of the Chipmunks revenge.

Go on now, Vote for Change!

Jonathan Sheppard