David Cameron, mindful of the need to appear as a prime minister in waiting, is careful to be photographed in a sober suit. Yesterday he wore it to read the last rites over new Labour.

Leaving London to lead the celebrations in Crewe, he said that attempts to caricature the Tory candidate as a “toff” had been backward-looking and divisive. “In many ways it was the end of new Labour,” he said, before promising to continue “building this broad coalition for change so we can bring our country better government”.

In the past few weeks the Tory leader snapped at anyone who suggested that the Crewe & Nantwich by-election was “in the bag”. The scale and manner of his victory mean that there is no point in pretending any more: Mr Cameron is on course for No 10.

The dangers of being the front-runner are multiple: in all likelihood the Tory leader has two more years to endure the gaze, to both reassure and entertain with only the scant props available to an opposition leader.

ut Labour strategists waiting for Mr Cameron to slip up ought to reflect that he has already been centre stage for a year longer than Tony Blair before he became Prime Minister. In terms of his political persona the evidence is that the public is warming to, rather than growing bored with, the Conservative leader.

More potent threats come from those areas of policy Mr Cameron has found it expedient to leave vague. Will he campaign on a manifesto pledge to renegotiate elements of the European Union reform treaty? Who other than a handful of Czechs will be the Conservatives’ allies in the European Parliament when they leave the federalist EPP next year? How far does Mr Cameron believe the West should reduce its state-building ambitions in Iraq and Afghanistan?

On the domestic front, he is coming close to the fateful hour when he must decide whether to continue to match Labour’s projected spending into the next Parliament. Breaking with that policy would enable Labour to portray the Tories once again as hell-bent on cutting public services.

In Crewe & Nantwich, the Tories pursued a policy of “love-bombing” Liberal Democrat voters, emphasising the party’s commitments to green and social justice issues. But in exploiting anger over fuel prices and backing Heathrow’s expansion, Mr Cameron risks being out of step with the environmental rhetoric of the initial stages of his leadership.

One compensation for his long years of opposition is that Mr Cameron has been able to rehearse many of the policy battles that have dogged previous Tory leaders even if some — like his proposals for green taxes — are taking place behind doors not just closed but locked.

Next month Tory MPs have been summoned to a weekend on the outskirts of London. Officially it is the biannual parliamentary away day. One frontbencher had a different interpretation: “The training starts here.”

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