It’s time to fight back, the title of the Conservatives’ crime statement yesterday, has a double meaning. It refers not only to the specific proposals but also to David Cameron’s personal counter-attack. For the past two months, he has been on the defensive in the face of the Gordon Brown onslaught, Labour’s advance in the polls and several self-inflicted errors.

But is the worst over for Mr Cameron, as the widely read conservative home site asked yesterday? Its “reasons for hope” were threefold: first, the bad polls are unlikely to get worse; secondly, what is called “Project Cameron” has more balance, with greater emphasis on immigration, cutting inheritance tax and Euroscepticism; thirdly, Mr Brown’s problems are mounting in view of headlines over lawlessness and social breakdown.

Mr Cameron seems to have caught the national mood after the Rhys Jones murder, in a way that, for all his authority on policy, Mr Brown finds hard to express. The Tories have found their voice and this has boosted Mr Cameron’s self-confidence.

At the same time, the Government has not shown the firm grip it had in July. Ministers have appeared to be reacting, rather than setting the agenda, on crime and on an EU referendum, while their attack on John Redwood’s competitiveness as “a lurch to the right” appeared vacuous and a reversion to the Brownite playbook of the late 1990s. It would have been better for Labour to challenge the Tories on which regulations are not needed.

The Tories still have plenty of problems. Mr Brown remains well ahead of Mr Cameron as preferred prime minister. The Tory policy review remains a muddle. No one knows what is a firm commitment especially when ideas clash, as between the quality of life and competitiveness groups. A leisurely two-year process based on the theme of “may a thousand flowers bloom” appealed early last year but now looks a luxury, even if there is no election until next spring. Talking about crime and the like is no substitute for a clear view on the role and size of the State.

There is always, however, a danger of overinterpreting events noticed only by those in the political world. My guess is that few voters, as opposed to Tory MPs and activists, have yet registered what the Tories have said. That is why, as Mr Brown showed in the mid-990s, opposition parties have to keep repeating the same message.

There is no evidence yet of any real shift in the polls. The latest ICM poll in The Guardian on Monday putting the Tories two points up at 34 per cent suggests that the party’s rating may have bottomed out, but to talk of the Labour lead being slashed or of a warning for Mr Brown is nonsense. Labour gained one point to 39 per cent, and, on the usual ready reckoner, would give Mr Brown an increased majority of 85 to 95, with the Liberal Democrats losing half their current seats. Of course, changes in votes may vary, with the Tories doing much better in southern England.

This poll was undertaken last Wednesday and Thursday and coming ones, including Populus in The Times next week, will show the impact of the focus on gun and street crime. The question for Mr Brown is not just what Labour’s poll lead is now, but whether it may disappear over the winter. At least for the moment, Mr Cameron and the Tories are no longer retreating.

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