THERE IS NO MAGIC BULLET FOR CAMERON'S TORIES

Cameron would disarm the UKIP threat in marginal seats by offering an in-orout referendum but at what cost? The BBC and Left-wing press would slaughter him, saying he had “lurched to the Right”.

Labour would level the more electorally toxic charge that he had “flip-flopped” just before an election. The policy shift would feed into the “Con Man” narrative it is seeking to run against Cameron. Ken Clarke would probably resign from the Shadow Cabinet, leading to new “Tory split” stories.

And all for the ninth most salient issue. It would be a similar story on global warming, an issue Cameron appeared passionate about early in his leadership. Certainly polls show most voters are irritated about the overcooking of this theory. 

But making climate change denial a part of his manifesto would again see him depicted as a shallow, Right-wing flip-flopper and could scare off crucial middle-ofthe-road floating voters.

War on political correctness is a card he has already played but playing it much harder would alienate groups such as gays and ethnic minority voters.

Talking more about immigration – rated in most polls as the second most important issue for voters after the state of the economy – is something that some of his advisers have been urging upon him.

But even I, an arch migration sceptic, concede this has to be handled with care. Cameron chose (wrongly in my view) to make appearing relaxed about immigration a key part of his “modernising” political brand. If he pushes migration-scepticism too hard now he will again face the deadly flipflopper/lurch to the Right charge.

Given that the Tories are already well ahead on the issue anyway it is natural that he should worry about the potential downside.

Having a last-minute Shadow Cabinet reshuffle centred around getting a more experienced figure than George Osborne in as Shadow Chancellor is something else that has been urged upon him.

Six months ago that could have been presented as an act of ruthlessness befitting a tough leader prepared, as Jeremy Thorpe joked of Harold Macmillan, to “lay down his friendsfor his life”. Now it would reek of panic.

Cameron’s challenge is to push the Tory poll rating back above 40 per cent. But in a climate where millions of voters despise all three major parties following the expenses scandal that is nigh-on impossible.

Trying to placate every single-issue fanatic in the electorate would be like herding cats. Get one in the pen and another will wander off. It may be that the 39 per cent average Cameron has been achieving in recent weeks is the maximum that any “mainstream” party can achieve.

Veteran Labour campaigners are privately expressing surprise that the Tories have not succeeded in boiling down a few key messages and communicating them to the general public until even the least political person in the land can recite them in his sleep. “It is strange that they are not doing better. Individually they obviously have some good people. But if you start a sentence ‘Britain needs a Conservative government because...’ then you have to conclude that they have not really filled in the dots,” said one.

Filling in those dots is the task now. The country is looking for a strong, straightforward leader who knows what he believes in and responds well under pressure. With polling day just two months away it is too late for Cameron to reinvent beliefs, policies and priorities.

Instead he must communicate the ones he already has with passion, vigour and discipline. If he offers a false or half-baked prospectus voters will see it as a telling sign of weakness.

We have reached the stage of the political cycle when the only advice any party leader should heed is the following Shakespearean gem: “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”