Janet Daley's article in the Daily Telegraph this morning is required reading.
It's astonishing to think, looking back on the numerous successes the party has experienced over the past few months, just how bad things looked only twelve months ago.
For a few weeks it appeared as if Clunking Fist's poll lead against the policy-lite Conservatives, having single-handily "changed politics", beaten back rising flood waters and eliminated food and mouth disease from the British countryside, was virtually unassailable.
How times change. Brown and Cameron's differing responses to the crisis in Georgia serve as a case in point:
"Where is he [Brown] now that we are facing the most genuinely terrifying international confrontation in a generation? This is the man who has reminded us repeatedly (and rather plaintively) of the triumphal opening chapter of his premiership, implying that he would like nothing more than another opportunity to display Courage Under Fire. And he is missing in action. Gone AWOL? Hidden deep in his bunker surrounded by reassuring aides? Paralysed by the collapse of relations with his own Foreign Secretary? Hunched over his plans for a great autumn relaunch? Who knows?
"Mr Cameron, meanwhile, cleverly filled the vacuum by taking himself off to Georgia to utter an uncompromising message of defiance to the Russians - and to deliver an unambiguous message to the British media that he wasn't just a politician for the soft times. He may have the luxury that Heaven bestows on opposition politicians of being powerless and therefore not encumbered with the problem of actually having to make anything happen, but his statements were unequivocal enough to commit him to a course of action in office - which is brave enough"
