Leader fails to unite the mods and rockers within his party

Iain Duncan Smith unintentionally left one of his best lines out of yesterday's speech to the Conservative conference: "We cannot remain the only part of Britain untouched by the changes that we ourselves unleashed."

It is ironic the Tories have been much slower than Labour to come to terms with the impact of the Thatcherite revolution. Despite the blunt home truths told to the faithful in Bournemouth this week, too many Tories still appear to believe they have a divine right to govern and normal service will soon be resumed.

Mr Duncan Smith was right to speak of a "slow, hard road back to power." Whether he was right to hail the conference as a turning point on that road is another matter.

True, Tory leaders feared the week would be overshadowed by "noises off" such as John Major, Edwina Currie and Jeffrey Archer. By serving up a few meaty policies, they turned the conference from a potential disaster into a presentational success. We now have a better idea of what "IDS" stands for. "It's mission accomplished," one Tory official said yesterday.

Yet the conference failed to quell the doubts over whether Mr Duncan Smith is the right man to lead the Tories into the next general election. In the overcrowded bars, restaurants and hotels in Bournemouth, there were plenty of Tory MPs and party members who backed "IDS" for leader a year ago but were now having second thoughts.

The Tory leader will have to maintain the momentum from this conference until next May. If the results of the elections to local authorities, Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly are poor, there will be a move to oust Mr Duncan Smith. Only 25 MPs are needed to force a vote of confidence and some are already saying they are not prepared to sleepwalk to a third crushing defeat.

Despite his highly personalised appeal to his party and the public yesterday, Mr Duncan Smith cannot be sure he will get even one shot at becoming Prime Minister. David Davis, after his surprise demotion from the party chairmanship, is a potential assassin with a motive.

On the conference fringe, there was a spring in Kenneth Clarke's Hush Puppies. Allies of Michael Portillo hope he might yet be called back to save his party from oblivion, although he has made that prospect less likely by appear-ing to turn his back on politics since last year's leadership election.

Mr Duncan Smith is struggling to reconcile the "mods" and "rockers" inside his party. Perhaps they are really two parties underneath. The modernisers want him to go further and faster; the traditionalists are trying to hold him back.

The problem, perhaps, is that the Tory leader is a moderniser in his head rather than his heart – unlike Tony Blair. He knows the party must change but is wary of breaking with traditionalists because, by instinct, he is one of them.

As a backbench MP, Mr Duncan Smith was fascinated by Mr Blair's spell as Opposition leader. He is trying to mirror it but New Labour was disciplined and stuck ruthlessly to its strategy, while the Tories sent too many mixed messages this week.

On Sunday, we were told the leader was to complete Margaret Thatcher's unfinished revolution. But yesterday, he tried to slay Thatcherite dinosaurs, such as Lord Tebbit.

Mr Duncan Smith portrayed himself as a decent man trying to create a "decent society," But the Tories are relying too heavily on the voters losing faith in the Prime Minister, and they are still talking to themselves rather than the outside world.