In a week when our conference has been dominated by the financial crisis, it is worth asking what happens to politics when times get tough.
Gordon Brown clearly believes the changed economic circumstances will help him - although he may be reading too much into the normal post-conference bounce. He is desparately hoping the "no time for a novice" charge will work because his old line about ending boom and bust has been shot to pieces.
Personally after listening to David Cameron yesterday I think the novice line is dead in the water. But the Prime Minister and Labour are making a much more fundamental mistake, which is to assume that in choppy times the mood of the country will swing left.
In tough times, people are surely more likely to be angry about wasteful government expenditure than want the state to step in at every opportunity. More fundamentally, which is the party that has always believed we need to prioritise the wealth creation process, as opposed to the wealth distribution process? And which party has a proven track record of taking tough and difficult decisions to set the country back on track in times of economic difficulty?
Particularly that latter point seemed to me to be the sub-text of David Cameron's speech, and why things may not have improved for the Prime Minister as much as he thinks.