Why are the Conservatives doing badly?

Over the last couple of weeks I've been concentrating perhaps more than usual on the headline voting intentions figure. Mostly that's because the big issue has become whether Labour's lead is solid enough to tempt Gordon Brown into an election, but I'm also becoming convinced that a lot of other questions, things like the best party on issues and leaders approval ratings, aren't particularly independent of the main voting intention questions.

Looking at the details of the YouGov poll from the weekend David Cameron's approval ratings are now way down, the proportion of people who think he has improved the Conservatives' chance of winning the next election is also way down at 25% (not surprising given the polls) but I suspect these are largely symptoms of the Tory malaise, not causes.

What about the underlying perceptions of the Conservative party? Have they acquired new freshness and balance? 31% say yes, 46% say no. Looking at the cross breaks though there are a fair old proportion (31%) of - presumably cheesed off - Tory supporters who say he hasn't, but there are also significant proportions of opposition supporters who say he has. 22% of Labour supporters think he has yet this clearly isn't enough for them to switch to the Tories.

There is a similiar pattern when YouGov asked whether the Conservatives reflect the values of British people. Only 26% agree, 45% disagree, but a fair old chunk of those disagreeing are Conservative supporters while there is a significant proportion of Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters who think the Tories do better reflect British values these days...yet still don't support them.

Amongst the statements offered there are three possible explanations for Tory unpopularity that meet with overwhelming agreement amongst non-Conservative voters - firstly, that it's hard to know if there is any substance behind what David Cameron says, secondly that Cameron seems like a lightweight compared to Brown, and thirdly that it's hard to know what the Conservative party stands for these days.

Asked what the reasons might be for the Conservative lack of progress, something of the same picture emerges. 64% of people think that one of the reasons the Conservatives aren't doing better is that it's hard to know what they'd actually do. On policy questions the most popular risens given by non-Conservative supporters for why the Tories are doing badly is that they can't yet trust the Conservatives on schools and hospitals and they don't have credible policies (in contrast, most Conservative supporters think the problem is they aren't attacking the government enough on waste).

I suspect that these are the problems that actually are facing the Conservatives at the moment - firstly, people prefer Gordon Brown to David Cameron. All the polls show he is seen as more of a heavyweight, looks stronger and he is certainly more trusted in a crisis and seen as a better Prime Minister. Secondly, the Conservatives don't seem to have any policies and no one knows what they will do.

At this point in time there is not much the Conservatives can do about making David Cameron seem more heavyweight in comparison to Brown. One of them is a heavy-set man in his fifties of stern demeanour who has been at the top of government for a decade, the other is inexperienced, polished, young looking man who used to do the PR for Carlton TV. We know the strengths and weaknesses in the public perceptions of the two men, and no amount of spin is going to make Cameron look more heavyweight than Brown. For the moment the Conservatives need to do all they can to stop an election being seen as a Brown vs Cameron choice.

With the other problem the Conservatives can at least do something - if the problem is not having credible policies and not presenting a compelling picture of what a Conservative government would offer, the conference is their chance (possibly their last chance before an election) to do it - so far it looks as if they do indeed intend to use their conference to bring forward solid policy announcements and no doubt there will be polls next weekend to show if it has had any effect.

What needs to be remembered however is that there's no silver bullet. Even if the Conservatives do come up with coherent policies that the public notice and remember - no easy task in itself - what really counts is how well Gordon Brown and Labour do, there is no course of action that the Conservatives can take that will automatically deliver victory or even a recovery. I remain a firm believer that governments lose elections, oppositions don't win them (though opposition are perfectly capable of losing them).