Labour is losing on most fronts to Cameron, hence its new cultural war over Islam

The House of Commons has scarcely been back a week and already opportunities are falling from the sky for David Cameron. Government failures are spectacular and ubiquitous. Prisons are overflowing, hospital wards are closing and unemployment is rising. Casualty rates are high in Afghanistan and Britain has effectively lost Basra to warring militias. On every front Labour looks embattled, exhausted — and there for the taking.

This is happening at a rather inconvenient time for the Conservatives. It has not yet finished its image makeover, the policy review is a year away and Mr Cameron is adamant that he will not bring forward the timetable. But, at Tory headquarters, there is an acceptance that firm proposals are needed to take on an imploding government. The strategy is quietly changing and a stream of policies is being discreetly produced for release over the next few months.

Thanks mainly to his obstinacy — and the public loyalty that has enabled him to stand his ground — the man with the most ammunition is David Davis. Now in his third year as shadow home secretary, he saved his old policies from Mr Cameron’s ideological purge and has for years been calling for more prisons to be built. It is the ideal rebuke to the scandalous transfer of inmates to police cells now that British prisons have been declared full. Here is a long-standing Tory policy, demonstrably better than Labour’s.

Alongside this, mini-policies are being produced — intended as a sample of what a Tory government would do. Take, for example, the proposal to abolish income tax for armed forces on active duty. It oozed Tory values: a respect for the military and an instinct to cut tax. When the idea was adopted by Gordon Brown last Tuesday, one saw what happens to Tory meals which are served up too early.