As time seems to be counting down towards an election in th UK, it is time to put forward a true Conservative agenda to offer the electorate. David Cameron's inner-circle, for all their alleged expertise in policy making, presentation and so on, seem to have forgotten (or have never realised) that you need to relate policy, and importantly the outcome of policy, to ordinary peoples' every day lives, and also that you must not let your message be defined by the opposition.

Forget fancy stage-managed press conferences/press photo opps, they must start to bang on about how a policy will impact positively on the ordinary person and set the terms for their policies. Here are two, related, examples:

The seemingly taboo subject of lower taxation - is it beyond the wit of the present Tory team to put across the case for lower taxation in terms of "more money, for you to decide, to spend on your family, maybe music/sports lessons for the kids?", or "work harder, maybe more overtime, and you will keep the majority of the extra money you earn".

Public spending, which, of course, would need to be reduced to allow lower taxation - are they unable to articulate a message that asks people to consider, for example, whether the country would be worse off if we did not have the potato council? Or, would the country grind to a halt if there were no 'five-a-day fruit and veg co-ordinators'? Quangoes that cost billions of pounds a year - is there really no scope to cut spending here?

At the moment, I have to answer in the negative. It seems as if Team Cameron is playing at the university debating society game, rather than real politics, and our country will suffer as a result. Will they prove me wrong?

(contd) A weekend is a long time in politics

Well, well, well. On the first proper day of their conference the Conservatives have presented a number of sensible, well thought-out, right-of-centre policies on health, education and planning. Plus they have finally had the courage to talk tax, and the announcement that the threshold for that most disgusting of taxes, Inheritance Tax, will be raised to £1million will be welcomed by all homeowners in the country (no matter what they might tell the pollsters), as they won't have to set up trusts and clever wills to avoid their relatives getting a massive tax bill when they die.

It is a good start, and I will be watching the rest of the conference for more of the same and will report on Thursday on whether the Tories have indeed proved me wrong.