THE Labour Party at its annual conference last week, despite much fighting talk, looked and sounded like a political beast in its death throes, resigned to defeat at next year’s General Election.

The Conservatives, by contrast, seem to be determined not to make their conference an early victory parade. While it is undoubtedly the case that the election is David Cameron’s to lose, there were some sobering thoughts for party activists to dwell on when their conference opened in Manchester yesterday.

Not least of these was party chairman Eric Pickles’ warning that the 117 seats the Tories need to win from Labour is a figure not achieved by the Conservatives since before the war.

To give Mr Cameron the keys to 10 Downing Street with an overall majority will mean a voting swing greater than that which brought Margaret Thatcher to power in 1979. It is a huge task. The Tories have the same advantage over Labour that Tony Blair had over John Major back in 1997 – namely that people are simply fed up with the governing party and want a change.

But that is not always enough to secure votes as Neil Kinnock discovered to his cost in 1992. And that, no doubt, is why Mr Cameron is so keen to avoid turning this week’s conference into the kind of victory rally that so damaged Mr Kinnock.

Mr Cameron knows he has to persuade the public that his policies – of which we still do not know enough – are the right ones for Britain. That process of persuasion begins in earnest in Manchester.

Mr Cameron has modernised, energised and apparently unified his party after more than a decade in opposition.

They believe they are ready to govern again. Now they have to prove it to the rest of us.