Tories upbeat in Blackpool

The mood at the conference has switched from despair to optimism. I traced it to Osborne's speech but Emily Maitlis reckons it turned about midday. Anyway it was still buzzing at 2am this morning when yours truly retired.

The upbeat mood is set to continue. If conference liked Hague socking it to Brown, then Fox will do the same today—and Brown's trip to Iraq may serve only to give him a better backdrop. I hear the good doctor (and a former Major in the Army medical corps when he was seconded there) has been around the Tory constituency AGMs practising a line: the Brown's conference speech had one words on Iraq and Afghanistan for every four people who died in the conflict.

Expect more smiles here in Blackpool. The word "fey" is one of many which has a slightly different meaning in my native Scotland: a kind of happy relaxation seen in someone doomed to die. It came to mind tonight. The Tories are doomed, but very upbeat about it.

PS Brown has had his people working for weeks on his Iraq statement to the House of Commons next week which will announce the withdrawal of 2,000 or more troops from Basra and the move to overwatch. His bringing this forward to try to upstage the Tories is perhaps the strongest sign that things are going far better than expected in Blackpool.