The hall will be bathed in it, with the new party logo of a tree — instead of the old torch — given prominence. One party official said it would “look a bit Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

Cameron, who learnt the tricks of the presentational trade in his days as a corporate public relations man, has even ordered a “catwalk” of the sort pioneered by Tony Blair, which extends deep into the hall. Forget new Labour, this is new Tory; there is even a juice bar in the Bournemouth conference-centre-turned-rainforest.

And prepare he must, for this is a big moment for Cameron, just a week before his 40th birthday. Since becoming leader last year, he has impressed by softening the image of his party and giving it a modern voice. He has called for more understanding of “hoodies”, attacked shops selling provocative clothes for children and yesterday even unveiled an internet blog filmed in his kitchen.

He has talked, too, of “trusting people”, of investing in public services and of a “modern compassionate conservatism” — the Tories’ ratings in the opinion polls have jumped accordingly.

But a new image is not enough and Cameron knows it. A barrage of powerful voices both in and outside the party are now calling on their leader to start sketching out a new credo or ideology for the party. They want a much firmer idea of what a Cameroonian Britain might look like and — with his early gains in the polls now slipping — they want to hear about it soon.

“The leadership has done a good job of saying what the Conservatives are not now for,” said Lord Blackwell, former head of the Downing Street policy unit, now chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS). “But it is time for the other side of the coin — the principles the party is for and the policies that flow from them.”

For Cameron this is a potential nightmare. The Conservative party is no longer riven with ideological division in the public way it once was, but the “mods” and “rockers” are still there, tooled up and ready to rumble. Indeed some suspect that the peace exists precisely because Cameron has steered clear of making tough ideological pronouncements.

Amassed to the right of him there are those who have never forgiven the party for dumping Margaret Thatcher — a group that one moderniser calls “the head-banging Europhobic tax-cutters”. They want to see a flash of the old, a firm commitment to reducing taxes and an end to the “namby-pamby” politics of equal rights and work-life balance.

On the other side are the “über-Cameroons”, metropolitan-based modernisers who want their leader to go further in burying his party’s unpopular past and set out a more principled compassionate agenda. They value social workers above tax cuts and cheered Cameron’s recent apology to Nelson Mandela on behalf of the party for having once branded him a terrorist.

In short, there is a turf war going on for the soul of the Tory party and Cameron is caught in the middle of it. Until now he has made good mood music and given neither side anything substantial to get angry about. Now he is being asked to produce the beef.

It begs the question: who is the real David Cameron and when exactly does he plan to stand up?

EVERY night last week Cameron was home early at his north Kensington house to work on his big speech. This was political necessity rather than the usual negotiation with his wife Sam over whose turn it is to put the children to bed. Sam, say Dave’s aides, has her own system of “late passes” for the Tory leader, only allowing him out after 10pm twice a week.

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