Probably early for a post-mortem, but even David Davis's grandstanding won't damage the Conservatives sufficiently to rescue the Gordon Brown train-wreck we're seeing unfold. A Labour Party that has simultaneously alienated its natural left-wing support and also the centre-ground voters it needs to secure victory and has responded with a bid to woo right-wing voters with its 42-day detention bill, is beyond hope surely? So, at what point did it become apparent that the Government had lost its way?
The leadership procession that was achieved by ensuring that anyone who dared stand or vote against the overwhelming favourite knew that they were finished should Brown win?
The cancelled election to give Brown a mandate when his nearest advisers suddenly stopped telling him that it was in the bag?
Copying the Conservatives' inheritance tax policy, thus handing them the initiative for the first time and missing the opportunity to appeal to define the terms of the debate along the lines of 'party for the many vs party for the few'?
Allowing the publicity over David Cameron's "unscripted" Conference speech to obscure the fact that he didn't actually say anything?
The handling of the Northern Rock crisis revealed a fear of making the best available decision until all inferior alternatives had been exhausted?
The disastrous abolition of the 10p tax band allowed the Conservatives to undermine the party's core support without even needing to offer an alternative?
The ridiculous Crewe and Nantwich campaign that showed the party to be so out of touch that they suddenly appeared unelectable?
For me, it was the Inheritance Tax fiasco. That was an own-goal so spectacular that I can't think of a precedent. With the global economic downturn and the general weariness that always faces a long-standing encumbent as a backdrop, this was going to be the most difficult election to win since at least 1992 anyway. And yet just two weeks after Ed Balls was privately advising Brown that he was about to win an election that would finish the Conservatives as an electoral force forever, Brown and Darling were contriving to represent themselves as redundant in the face of these bright young things on the bench opposite. If I hadn't seen it wouldn't believe it.
