Back from the brink in one piece

MANY thanks to all who sent me kind messages over my health. If you have not been aware, I've been off work for six weeks, during the summer mayhem that has transfixed the Conservative Party.

Unless I have a set back, I'll be in the office from Wednesday - missing the Lib Dems in Brighton but going to the Labour conference in Bournemouth and the Tories in Blackpool.

During my time at home, I considered writing a blog about my problems, but decided against on the grounds that it was too personal. Suffice to say that I look forward to the future with greater confidence.

Gordon Brown's poaching of two Tory MPs to become policy advisers to him, his ploy of a photo opportunity with Baroness Thatcher, and the furore over green taxes hitting middle England families has put Conservative activists in a stew. They are looking at elecoral disaster for the fourth time and have started turning on the Cameroons. Cats in a sack spring to mind.

As for Sir Ming Campbell's desperate call for a referendum on our future membership of the EU rather than on the constitution, it is designed to ensure the constitution is enshrined in the UK by default. There seems to be enough Labour MPs, plus the TUC, to persuade Brown he must call a referendum. If he did it would be shrewd politics - it would remove a key election plank away from the Tories.