It’s not the policies, stupid

Here we go.  They are at it.  The Tory outriders, Tim Montgomerie and Fraser Nelson, both think they know how to it:

In his News of the World column Fraser Nelson says there are five keys to Downing Street: immigration, education, defence, crime and jobs. He uses his column to set out the winning Tory policies in each area.

The biggest issue missing from that list is the whole anti-politics thing.

Then we get a word cloud that highlights the biggest concerns of the Tory grassroots:

There will loads more of this free advice over the coming days, but Andrew Rawnsely’s take on the dilemma facing the Tories is spot on:

Influential voices around David Cameron are telling him to forget any more loving and concentrate on bombing. Their visceral instinct is to go for the Lib Dems as wet on crime, reckless on defence, soft on immigration and in love with Europe.

The risk for the Tories is that this lures David Cameron back on to Michael Howard territory and will look like a lurch to the right which is repulsive to the liberal, centrist voters that he needs.

But it’s much more than this.  It’s the image the Clegg projected during the debate that allowed him to cut through.  He resonated with the public because he wasn't the other two, and has understood “the whole anti-politics thing”.

The Tories can alter their policies until the cows come home, but unless they address the wider issues that Clegg successfully exploited last Thursday, they will not cut-through to the voters.