Gordon Brown did nothing to calm his party's election fever today as the Tory leadership formulated emergency plans to impose A-list candidates in some 200 constituencies if the Prime Minister decides to call a snap poll.

The question as to whether Mr Brown will call an early election this autumn has been the sole subject of conversation at this week's Labour conference in Bournemouth and was given extra impetus last night by an opinion poll giving the party an 11-point lead over the Conservatives.

But it was not brought up until the very end of a long and wide-ranging question-and-answer session at the conference today between Mr Brown and the broadcaster Mariella Frostrup, who politely asked the Labour leader about his election plans.

"Charming as you are, Mariella, I think the first person I will have to speak to is the Queen," he replied, deftly batting away the question.

Coming in to this week's conference, most in the party thought that the election speculation was being cleverly manipulated by Downing Street just to keep the Conservatives on the back foot and to upset David Cameron's plans for a steady release of key policies.

But it has gone beyond mere speculation and Mr Brown will have to make his intentions clear soon after parliament resumes on October 8 if he decides either for or against a November election.

Mr Brown's aides will have been cheered to read in today's Times on comments made by Lord Tebbit, the former Thatcher-era minister who remains a beacon on the Tory Right. In an interview for this week's Times Magazine, Lord Tebbit praised Mr Brown for his decision to invite Baroness Thatcher to No 10 earlier this month and even portrayed him as her natural political heir.

They will have been further cheered by advance publication an interview in this week's Spectator magazine with the Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, hinting at unexpected divisions even in Mr Cameron's inner circle.

In the interview, Mr Osborne, who is in charge of the Conservative election machine, distances himself from the party's 'über-modernising' wing that does not believe in raising traditional Tory issues such as crime, immigration or lower taxes but calls instead for a "more balanced message" to come out of next week's Tory conference in Blackpool.

For Mr Brown's election strategists the phrase "more balanced message" will be seen as a sign that the Prime Minister's relentless attempts to woo Tory voters is paying dividends and forcing the Conservatives to lurch to the Right.

Disaffection among the Tory ranks is likely to be increased by the news today that Mr Cameron had taken powers to impose his controversial A-list candidates - which include a high proportion of women or ethnic minority candidates - on constituency parties if Mr Brown calls a snap election.

There are currently some 200 vacant berths, largely because of constituency refusals to accept candidates nominated by central office. predominantly women or ethnic minority his David Cameron has risked stoking. Mr Cameron's aides accepted that most of those candidates would come from the "A list".

Meanwhile, Mr Brown used today's Q&A session to renew his appeal to Tory and Liberal dissenters to join Labour. After telling how his preacher father had taught him to "reach out" to people, he said: “I will continue with the policy of reaching out to those people who share our views, who believe in a society built by working hard, playing by the rules, fair play. People who believe in our views about British values, people who may have voted for, indeed are members of, other political parties but now see that the future of this country requires a Government that stands for these values.”

That remark provoked speculation that another Tory MP might be about to defect to Labour as early as this weekend. The name on everyone’s lips - although he has denied it - is John Bercow, the Tory MP for Buckingham, who has been recruited by the Prime Minister to take part in a project concerning children with communication disabilities.

In a definite shift, senior ministers have started to talk openly about the merits of a snap election.

John Denham, the Skills Secretary, said today that opinion poll figures predicting election gains were “exciting” to see. He told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One: “You look at the polls and you say to yourself ’what’s happening in the next 20 to 30 Tory seats?’. On the ground, are we going to win those seats? Because one of the things that the polls would say is we could turn a majority of 60 with two-and-a-half years to run into a majority of 100 with five years to run."

Ed Balls, the Schools and Families Secretary, spoke revealingly of an election "gamble" in an interview from Bournemouth with the Today programme. “I think Gordon Brown will be looking very carefully at the events of this week,” he said.

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