Fraser Nelson

I’ve just done BBC World Service with Martin Bright, my counterpart at the New Statesman. We’re pitched against each other quite a lot - the theory being that I’m a right-winger, he’s a left-winger and we’ll go at each other. Problem is, we agree on most things – and I certainly won’t demur from his verdict on last night. “I don’t think anyone thought the results could be quite as devastating for Labour,” he said. “These are national issues. It’s very difficult to see this as anything else. A year ago, possibly even six months ago, people didn’t think there was a realistic prospect of a Conservative government. That has changed.” He made two criticisms of the Tories.

In a not-very-hotly contested category, this was perhaps Gordon Brown’s best PMQs performance. His content wasn’t any more accurate, but sounding confident is half the battle. And he did. He didn’t stutter or garble his words and looked much more relaxed. As ever, there’s a bit of Dr Johnson’s dog about this - but Cameron chose the wrong issue and if he expected Brown to crumble he was mistaken. A day ahead of the local elections, Cameron could and should have picked a doorstep issue. Instead he went on the case for 42 day detention without trial. Brown seemed quite optimistic about it. When he was defending it, I fancied I caught a glimpse of the Blair strategy – when under fire, run into the fire.

Labour’s losing no time on the Crewe and Nantwich by-election – due three weeks on Thursday (May 22). I suspect they believe this will be a much-needed fillip to Brown. Sure, Gwyneth Dunwoody had a 7,000 majority – but it’s the type of seat Cameron needs if he is to win the kind of majority projected by the ICM/News of the World poll at the weekend. Therefore if Labour retains it, Brown can genuinely claim it is an achievement of sorts. Also you can bet the LibDems will turn up in their caravans, and gobble an unfair share of the anti-Brown vote. So a very small chance of a Tory victory, I’d say.

I doubt many headlines will come from David Cameron’s poverty speech in Euston today, but for those looking to see him wrestle his way out of Labour’s way of thinking and towards a Tory solution there was plenty to see. Here’s the problem as I see it. Brown has long understood that metrics are power. He who chooses the yardstick wins the battle – and if he defined “poverty” as the number of people below the 60% median income, he can fake progress. For ten years, instead of tackling poverty, he has used the tax credit system to manipulate the results of this very specific target. And for ten years, the Tories have said nothing. Poverty, they figured, was Labour’s domain. In his speech, Cameron broke free of this.

I’ve just arrived back from a visit to Scotland (stag party in Feshiebridge) and in my sober moments picked up these few observations…. 1. No Tolls: On my drive there and back I whizzed past the Forth Road Bridge with no tolls – better for traffic and my pocket. Motorists (including one driving G Brown) do this 12 million times a year, and many will be thinking “Thank-you Alex Salmond.” It is a fairly powerful propaganda tool. A unionist administration in Edinburgh would not have done this, as the idea had been to be discreet about the English subsidy. Those days are gone, supplanted by the new era of stirring things up.  2.

If David Cameron liked the YouGov poll in the Telegraph last Thursday, he will love tomorrow’s News of the World. For the first time since the bottled election it has commissioned ICM to poll the marginals. You rarely see this – it’s difficult and very expensive to do. The result? That the boy Ashcroft done well. It suggests Cameron would make net gains of 131 seats, a 64-seat majority (Brown has 65 today). The last time the NOTW did this poll, Brown called off the election – then (story, pdf), it suggested Labour would lose almost 50 seats. The damage has more than doubled since. As you would expect from such a lead, Cameron is also ahead on the issues, the biggest lead being immigration.

After that ICM poll suggesting the Tory lead had shrunk to 5 points, tomorrow's Telegraph gives Cameron just what he wants ahead of next week's local elections: an 18 point lead. Breakdown is 44-26-17. It's YouGov, in my view the most reliable pollster. When YouGov had the Tories with 16 point lead it was seen as a freak, until everyone else reached a similar figure eventually.  To win, Cameron needs the biggest swing ever achieved by the moderen Conservative party in Opposition. And yet, such a goal is starting to look increasingly likely.