The Conservatives will only have a fighting chance if they can offer a coherent picture of what a David Cameron government would be like. The absence of such clarity has held the Tories back. So their main aim in Blackpool this week is to fill in the blanks: to back up Mr Cameron’s nebulous social responsibility message with more specific, and understandable, pledges. Or, as George Osborne put it, the question people are asking of the Tories: “Are we ready to lead?”

The verdict halfway through the conference is “trying hard, but not yet”. The Tories are having to make policy very fast, far faster than planned originally. After 18 months of leisurely and disengaged policy reviews, they are now having to firm up pledges in a hurry. The Shadow Cabinet agreed the outlines of a draft manifesto last week.

As in Bournemouth last week, the parts do not add up to a convincing whole. There are similar crowd-pleasing announcements: raising the starting threshold for inheritance tax up to £1 million (the biggest cheer so far) and abolishing stamp duty for most first-time housebuyers. The tax-cutting crowd was delighted. The main beneficiaries will be in the South East and in better-off areas elsewhere. This will be funded by a new levy on those registered for non-domiciled tax status, though the Tory figures are strongly disputed by Labour.

But, whatever their individual merits, these proposals do not represent a coherent tax strategy, let alone an overall economic policy. Mr Osborne has been vague about how far the Tories will shift the burden of taxation from income to pollution. We know that air passenger duty will be replaced by an airline pollution duty, and that receipts from new green taxes will go straight back via matching tax cuts. But which and how much?

Mr Osborne was firm on no unfunded tax cuts and on sticking to government plans for a 2 per cent rise in spending for the next three years. But, at the same time, the Tories have been complaining about the squeeze on the defence and law and order budgets. If we are to have more ships, troops, police and prison places, what will be the offsetting savings? Scrapping ID cards and regional bodies will raise only a limited sum of money.

On the positive side, Andrew Lansley (Health) and Michael Gove (Schools) talked of increasing diversity of provision and extending patient/parent choice: for instance, making it much easier for new schools to be opened by “charities, churches, voluntary groups and others”. These go much farther than Labour’s plans, at the same time as there are now doubts about the direction and pace of reform under the Brown Government.

However, contradictions remain in other areas. Mr Osborne said more houses need to be built so that supply meets demand. But where? Grant Shapps, the Housing Spokesman, backed a big rise in housebuilding, but said that local communities should be more involved in decisions on new housing and targets for denser development should be scrapped. That is a receipe for stalemate and the victory of nimbyism.

The big questions about the role and scale of the State remain shadowy. The outlines of the Tory approach have started to emerge. But a lot more needs to be made explicit, quickly.

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