Reports Martin Ivens in The Sunday Times,

“Brown’s men know they are on the back foot. “Gordon was always cautious about holding it [an election]. But if we went now we would win on authority,” said a cabinet minister. “But we want a positive, a bigger mandate.” As for Cameron’s triumph, he sneered: “Iain Duncan Smith was seven points ahead after his conference speech in 2003. That was a few weeks before the Tories got rid of him.”

It is always important to put matters into context, so when assessing how good or bad things might be, it is only right to look for recent historical precedents.  Thus the sneering Labour cabinet minister infers that David Cameron’s current popularity will prove as ephemeral as Iain Duncan Smith’s fast evaporating post Conservative Conference “seven-point bounce” in 2003.

You might recall that this was the Conservative Conference when Andrew Rawnsley of The Guardian described Mr Duncan Smith as the “dead man talking” and contemporary opinion polls included such questions as,

 “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote Conservative at the next election if Iain Duncan Smith were to be replaced as leader by...?”

According to the opinion polls of the time, up to 52% of the people questioned were dissatisfied with Mr Duncan Smith's performance as Leader of the Official Opposition.  The ICM opinion poll published in The Guardian pre-conference in September 2003 indicated that Labour led the Conservatives by 35% to 30% and the ICM poll for following month, post conference, showed Labour’s lead to have remained steady - support for the two main parties being 38% to 33% respectively.

Mr Duncan Smith was ousted as the leader of the Conservative party because he did not seem to be making any significant, positive impact upon the electorate.  At no time did he ever enjoy a seven point poll lead over Labour, save perhaps amongst the members of Chingford and Woodford Green Conservative Association.

Big bang – the Tory tax bomb blowing Brown apart