Blue Eyes reckons the Tories are being useless and need to buck up their ideas – or at least their presentation – a bit if they want to start forming a government.

If you analyse the words, as I tend to, underneath the fluff there is quite a decent, small c, set of policies. George Osborne has outlined an independently monitored fiscal policy which would make a real difference, we have seen the proposal to build a high-speed rail network to free up capacity at Heathrow, the Tories are proposing elected “sheriffs” to whip law enforcement into shape at a local level. This is stern stuff.

But for some reason, Cameron is not making headway. His 52% poll rating was a result of Brown’s dithering, not his own supremacy. Now Brown is seizing the initiative once more the two parties are neck-and-neck. Cameron isn’t getting heard. I hate to write this, but there isn’t much point in having the best manifesto ever if you aren’t getting your message across.

What I want to know is: does it really make any difference when it’s going to be 18 months until the next General Election?

No, really, I mean it. This time last year, the Conservative Party was double digits behind in the polls. Now we’re complaining when Cameron drops below double digits ahead. When we’ve still got all that time and then half as long again after that before the next General Election, I can’t help but wonder why Cameron ought to lift a finger to do anything other than continuously point out that Brown’s economic policy (and incompetence) has brought us to the position we’re in.

Beyond that, why should they do anything which could give Labour ideas?

Oh, and Mandelson is overrated. The media might be following him like the Pied Piper’s rats, but the public know his game well enough now. Besides, I think I’d rather support a party that presented a number of good ideas, sensibly and intelligently than one which spends all its time working on media polish. As is said in the fantastic movie Primary Colors, “if we keep it clean, we win because our ideas are better“.

I’m becoming tired of the 24-hour political news cycle, and we’re prone to it in the blogosphere, too – constantly demanding action now all the time is leading to short term, half baked solutions that sound good in three or four word chunks but make no sense as long-term policies. Everybody has to have something to say on everything all the time, and just having a policy isn’t enough, you have to focus on it – except that I’d rather a proper government ‘focused’ on everything, not just whatever the media is talking about. Wide angle politics is what’s needed.

Or maybe we should just relax, and get back to being boring for a while?