Tories begin to emerge from their slumbers

The Conservatives left Bournemouth yesterday in much better heart than when they arrived. Their disastrous Hartlepool by-election result faded quickly in the safe cocoon of the conference centre. The UK Independence Party, which strikes fear in the hearts of Tory activists, is fraying at the edges. The Tories are happier in their own skin, no longer embarrassed by their own leader.

Slowly but surely, Michael Howard is developing a new, softer style. Surprisingly, he avoided attacking Tony Blair. The message from the focus groups is that voters have had enough Punch and Judy politics. They want more Richard and Judy.

Mr Howard's more measured tone does not come naturally. He is a lawyer who likes mastering a brief and being an attack dog. But his new style worked in his two conference speeches. He made a decent fist of trying to re-engage with the voters by winning their trust. In a week when Mr Blair's "trust problem" was again highlighted by the Iraq Survey Group's final report, the strategy looked clever.

But there is a problem. Is Mr Howard really the right front man for a new politics? He can't help it, but he is a symbol of the old politics. He says the voters want "action not words". The danger is people will discount his message as mere words from another old-school politician.

As one Tory adviser told me: "We need to become New Tories and we need someone like Blair in 1994. Michael Howard is making the right noises but he's not the ideal person to make them."

Mr Howard played the traditional right-wing cards on immigration, Europe, tax, and crime. But he did not pander to his audience in the way that Iain Duncan Smith did last year to cling to his job for a few more days. Mr Howard looked like a statesman rather than a rabble-rouser. He rejected strong last-minute pressure from senior colleagues, including the party's influential co-chairman Lord Saatchi, to make a hard pledge of tax cuts. It was a pity Mr Howard's new style was not replicated by Liam Fox, the other co-chairman, and David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, who played to the Tory gallery. It is no accident that they are potential rivals for the leadership. "There were too many freelance operations," one Tory frontbencher said. "We need to bottle Michael's tone and make sure it is delivered by everyone. Otherwise it looks as though we're just chasing the core vote, which we are not."

Mr Howard's approach is managerial rather than radical. "Accountability" is not a vote-winning slogan. His five pledges: "More police, cleaner hospitals, lower taxes, school discipline, controlled immigration" may be inoffensive and deliberately modest, but may not set the voters' pulses racing. As he admitted yesterday, people have little idea of his party's policies. Some Tory modernisers believe the party needs a "Clause 4 moment" or a "10,000-volt shock" policy to grab the voters' attention. When you ask them what it is, they scratch their heads. But I suspect they are right: Mr Howard needs a powerful, undeniable symbol that his party has changed.

The "mods" think Mr Howard has cooled on the "inclusive" approach he set out when he pitched for the leadership last October in what many regard as his best speech. He said: "At our best, we are a party broad and generous - broad in appeal and generous in outlook - a party capable of representing all Britain and all Britons. I will lead this party from its centre. I will call on the talents of all in the party and the party will expect all to answer that call."

It now looks as if he is leading his party from the centre-right, and, after bringing back John Redwood and dropping the modernisers John Bercow and Damian Green in last month's reshuffle, he is hardly using "all the talents".

Howard aides say he has "ticked the box" and proved his socially liberal credentials by backing legislation on "gay marriages". But I doubt the voters realise that. The Tory leader does not want to pick a Blair-style fight with his party. But if he did, at least the voters might sit up and take notice.

Mr Blair has often warned his party that the Tories are "not dead, just sleeping". He is right. Britain is a conservative country with a conservative-sounding Prime Minister who has marginalised the official Conservative Party.

The Tories are starting to emerge from their slumbers. But many voters have written them out of the script and, with just seven months to go until a general election, will people notice the reawakening in time?