Return of the blue meanies?

Mixed messages in the Sunday pulp on Cammers & Co apropos the pressing pre-election issues. Europe – or rather the Lisbon Treaty and the scary prospect of President Blair - figures highly for some. Others concentrate on the upcoming conference and how “welfare reform” is back on the agenda.

According to the supportive sources, the Conservative leader says he will turn his back on advice to play it safe in favour of “straight talk, leadership and radical new direction this country is crying out for” – or whatever Andy Coulson puts down for him in a News of the World ‘exclusive’ article by DC himself.

The coded message in the Sunday Telegraph is that the Tories are “ready to campaign on jobs and unemployment by scrapping the government's flagship New Deal, a costly programme dependent on state intervention which aims to bring down youth unemployment”.

No real indication of what measures other than state intervention – direct or indirect – can tackle joblessness but, hey, when the message is massive change then who cares, right? Maybe they'll dig up Wille Whitelaw and get him to do his short, sharp shock routine to conference. Or maybe the TECs will make a comeback. All that matters is that things are going to get better, similar, different.

As Cammers puts it himself, “ News of the World readers will see a big difference between a Labour party obsessed only with its own survival and a Conservative party not playing it safe - but making the tough decisions the country needs to get back on its feet.”

Just who is going to find it tough is just one of those troublesome details that can wait until later.