howard s unfinished business he s not finished yet whispered the conservative party person as your reporter attempted to slip quietly from the hall and indeed he wasn t michael howard had already broken away from the printed text of his speech at his party s spring conference in brighton to deliver a smart rebuff to peter hain s description of him as an attack mongrel claiming such personal abuse meant labour was rattled by the tory challenge and here he was again moving to the front of the stage as the party faithful rose to their feet in applause to make a personal adlibbed appeal to them to go out and fight for victory one day you will be able to tell your children and grandchildren as i will tell mine i was there i did my bit i played my part i helped to win that famous election the election that transformed our country for the better the speech which was peppered with references to mr howard s humble beginnings as the child of immigrants had been introduced by his son nick a trainee vicar who praised his father s honesty i always know where i am with him because all my life he has meant what he has said to me he said mr howard was also joined on stage by his wife sandra daughter larissa and stepson sholto the audience s reaction to all of this was a little muted by party conference standards but mr howard s overall message that the tories have labour on the run and that they can win the next election did not sound quite as hollow as it might have done six months ago mr howard claimed with some justification that the tories campaign has got off to a great start they have had labour on the back foot over immigration with tony blair hastily adding a sixth promise on the issue to his latest pledge card and have even managed to score points in traditional labour territory such as health and education the stunts involving margaret dixon with her postponed operation and maria hutchings with concerns about her son s special needs education may not have been to everyone s taste but they succeeded in bringing the issues alive and forcing labour to react senior tories believe they are at long last starting to tap into the public mood cutting through the background noise to connect with the ordinary voter their latest poster campaign flags up a range of policies from better school discipline cleaner hospitals i mean how hard is it to keep a hospital clean and immigration it s not racist to impose limits on immigration under the headline are you thinking what we are thinking this they say contrasts with labour s negative campaigning such as its now infamous flying pigs poster oliver letwin one of the men lampooned in the labour poster affects bewilderment at