The local elections on Thursday should be about the competence of each individual authority. They will not be. In the 1990s, when the Conservative Government was out of fashion and out of luck, many innocent councillors lost their seats. So it will be again. Labour should prepare for a depressing night.

Some results will reflect local issues but mostly this election will be a referendum on ten years of Labour and their conduct of government. The verdict may be severe.

I view politics now through the eyes of an outsider. And much of what I see is uncomfortable. Political promises ring hollow. The political parties seem isolated and remote. In the last two general elections the turnout dropped from a healthy 80 per cent to a modest 60 per cent. Public disaffection is widespread.

All parties bear some blame but the culpability of the present Government is clear. When Labour came to power, they brought with them all the black arts of sharp practice and spin that they had perfected in opposition. One of the most dismal legacies of the new Labour mission has been to turn government into a marketing exercise. The electorate now know they were sold a pup.

I am not naive about politics. Spin – putting a gloss on events – is as old as politics itself . . . but it’s gone too far. Spin today is often downright deceit. For all its faults, old Labour had a soul; new Labour only has sound-bites and apparatchiks, careless of constitutional proprieties, who will use any unscrupulous trick to benefit the Government.

This downward spiral began when Labour trashed the Government Information Service and politicised news management. Until then, no one doubted the No 10 spokesman. Now, if No 10 tells you Friday follows Thursday, wise men check the calendar. The consequence of this sophistry is profound and damaging. If, tomorrow, this Government told Parliament that our nation was under threat and we must go to war, would Parliament or the public rally behind it without independent corroboration? I think not – and that is unprecedented.

The Prime Minister has held office for ten years. That is remarkable. No one can take away from him the lustre of three successive victories. But that is the past. Now he is time-expired and will soon go.

But public cynicism will remain: how can it end while Labour remains in government? Too much trust has been forfeited. The local elections will provide an interim verdict.

It need not have been this way. Ten years ago Labour came in, inheriting a buoyant economy with huge public goodwill and an unassailable majority. It was an enviable political opportunity. In 1997 the electorate was told that “things could only get better”. But, in 2007, what exactly is?

Year upon year, taxes have risen but, so far as I can see, there are few if any signs that national (or local) public services are any better. Tax (and council tax) payers are not alone in asking: “Where has all the money gone?” Nurses, doctors, soldiers, civil servants, teachers – all line up in turn to express their dissatisfaction. So does the public. Among an army of broken promises, “education, education, education” rings especially hollow. It was the right priority but delivery has been negligible. “24 hours to save the NHS,” cried Labour on April 30, 1997. 87,600 hours later, what exactly has been achieved?

Elsewhere, as the Home Office staggers from blunder to blunder, “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” has disappeared from the ministerial vocabulary. As for Labour being “whiter than white”, events have proved otherwise. These fatuous slogans resonate in the ears of voters.

So does the Government’s conduct. Politicising the Civil Service; deleting e-mails; massaging figures; manipulating facts; “burying bad news”; presenting – and I put this more gently than Labour deserve – one-sided cases to the public, even on taking this nation to war; all this is more disreputable than anything we have seen before from a modern British government. No one should be surprised that Labour supporters are dispirited and can only find candidates for fewer than two thirds of the local government seats up for reelection this week.

In the midst of all this, it is once again becoming an exciting time to be a Conservative. Most of our party understand that we will only win if we recapture the centre ground as well as holding the centre-right. Some ancestral voices are unreconstructed. Some would rather move back than move on. But the country has moved on. And the party must move on, too.

And it is. Of course, there is much more to be done, but David Cameron is beginning to shape the political argument. The policy work is in hand. George Osborne is working on a much-needed lower/flatter/simpler tax system. Across the board, Shadow ministers are taking advice on how to deliver better health, education and transport policies.

The future will be testing. The majority of economic growth will come from the East; and the emerging world is likely to grow at three times the rate of Western Europe. Iraq, Iran, the Arab-Israel conflict and Afghanistan are long-term problems. Terrorism will not go away. A government bereft of trust – as Labour now is – is ill-placed to deal with such an indigestible diet of problems.

Soon Tony Blair will have gone. It is likely Gordon Brown will replace him. It won’t be an improvement – or even much of a change. For this has not been a Blair Government, but a Blair-Brown Government.

The Tories should concede to the Chancellor the credit he is due, even though some of his claims are dubious. He has kept sterling out of the euro. He is right to have done so. But, he inherited the opt-out for sterling – and the referendum that helped him to withstand pressure to enter.

Mr Brown enjoys credit for the economy, but he did not create it. We had been enjoying rising growth, falling inflation and higher employment since 1992 – five years before he became Chancellor.

But he seems unwilling to take the blame for follies that are due to him: wrecking private pensions; a tax credit scheme that has imploded, causing distress to many low-income families; and selling gold at one third of its present value. Nor should we forget soaring taxes and excessive regulation.

As his reputation collapses and his problems multiply, Mr Brown may become prime minister. But I fear his honeymoon will be a stormy one. After long periods in office, governments can face catastrophic defeats. We saw that in 1906, 1945 and 1997. The political landscape is changing again. The early rumblings may begin to echo on Thursday.

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