The two main antagonists for May 2015 have had their say. Right down to choosing Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow’ – immortalised in Bill Clinton’s successful presidential campaign of 1992, it also sold five million copies in 1977, incidentally – David Cameron sought to make the coming election a binary choice. Red versus blue, with no space for yellow or a ghastly purple; indeed the words ‘Liberal’ or ‘Democrats’ did not pass the Conservative leader’s lips, while his scorn for the United Kingdom Independence party was palpable – ‘that’s really a vote for Labour’ he spluttered. In perhaps his last address as Conservative leader, and prime minister of the United Kingdom, to his visible relief, Cameron had one task to convey: he, and only he, deserves to walk back through the door to No 10 on the morning of 8 May 2015.

This was Cameron’s most accomplished and passionate performance for quite some years. The easiest way to look prime ministerial is, of course, to be prime minister. But the Conservative leader played the part with aplomb. The contrast was made by implication from the very start when he hailed a D-day veteran; a serious and statesmanlike salute to someone he had met, rather than the Labour leader who had accosted Gareth on Hampstead Heath a few weeks before. Kremlinology aside, the speech will be remembered for the pledges on the personal tax allowance and raising the 40p tax rate threshold – both aimed at neutralising the Liberal Democrats and Ukip respectively.

The Labour leader had become adept at stealing the limelight of the conference season in the past few years with eyecatching announcements that would set the political debate for weeks if not months later. Ed Miliband attempted the trick last week in Manchester, to muted success. Not that the policies unveiled by Labour were not deemed popular by the electorate: they enjoyed approval ratings as high as 75 per cent in some cases. The reason the opposition party may have failed to enjoy a traditional post-conference bounce was unearthed in the invaluable Waugh Room Memo yesterday morning: ‘Tory party focus groups reported back last week that Miliband’s NHS promise had not been heard by voters, but his deficit attention disorder had been noticed’. It was not what the Labour leader said; it is what he forgot to say that was ultimately picked up by the electorate.

Cameron knows that the key argument is, in the end, the economy. But it was on the NHS where the prime minister allowed emotion to boil over, accusing Labour of downright ‘lies’. Labour had deliberately made the health service the fulcrum of their party conference last week, knowing as they do that the party enjoys a 30-point lead on the matter with voters. This was a classic example of a political party moving to, at best, neutralise its opponent’s key strength; the Conservatives know they cannot overturn this lead, while Labour is playing to its form. The danger is that the Conservatives are stronger on the economy than Labour is on the NHS, hence the Tories’ neat attack line. Miliband’s key error last week was that in the rush to acquire a cheap ovation on eulogising the NHS he forgot key lines on the economy, stupid, and made promises with our health service he knows he simply cannot keep.

The next election will be all but presidential in name, with Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage running as the rogue Ross Perots of the first Clinton victory. The one nod of acknowledgement from the Conservatives in favour of Miliband is that they all, to a man and woman in the hall, expect the next general election to be close. Five years after sinking to a historic and pitiful defeat Labour has a small but resilient lead. And five years after falling just short, the Conservatives can either sink into hung parliament obscurity, or rule with a majority.

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David Talbot is a political consultant. He tweets @_davetalbot