WHISPER it, but we could have a ‘live’ election next year after all. The winter nights are drawing in, and it is the Conservatives who are feeling the chill. The mood has changed more quickly than anyone believed possible.

Just a few weeks ago and Labour were all but resigned to defeat. Even the ‘Gordon Out’ campaigners on the backbenches had stopped their chattering – silenced by the sheer inevitability of an electoral hammering.

Rebels and loyalists alike left the party conference in Brighton like mourners at a funeral for a death that was yet to come. They buried themselves in constituency work; buried their heads in their hands.

Batten down the hatches; wait for the storm to hit; count the damage; hope only to survive.

Yet what a difference a poll makes. One single poll that put the Conservatives on 37 per cent, Labour on 31 per cent, and the cat well and truly among the pigeons.

After months of double-digit gaps between the two biggest parties, here was a poll pointing squarely at a hung parliament. By any objective criteria, that would still be a humiliating failure for a party of government, with 157 more seats than their nearest rivals. But who cares about ‘objective criteria’ right now? Not the Labour leadership, who greeted the poll with popping champagne corks; not their Conservative counterparts, who met it with ashen faces.

Suddenly Labour were like a party reborn. The briefing machine, silent for weeks, went back into overdrive – taking on the Tories over climate change, over the economy, over class.

An energised Mr Brown didn’t just win the exchanges at prime minister’s questions last week for the first time anyone can remember – he wiped the floor with David Cameron. Backbenchers walk around Westminster with a new spring in their step. It is a case of rock-bottom expectations suddenly raised just a bit; but in such matters, momentum counts.

No one on the Labour side believes they can win the election. But they do believe they can stop the Tories from doing the same. For them, for now, that feels like success.

And the Conservatives? Mr Cameron and his allies are keeping a careful eye on the Tory right. The party has proven itself capable of putting forward a united front in opposition. But the fault lines remain; the traditionalists and modernists are bound together by expedience. As long as Mr Cameron looks like a winner, the Eurosceptics will keep their thoughts largely to themselves – just as the Labour left did in 1997. Wobble, and the cracks may emerge.

So what changed? There is a sense that the Conservatives may have overdone the doom and gloom at their conference in Manchester. George Osborne’s speech – with its headline-grabbing talk of a pay-freeze for four million public servants and lifting the retirement age – was too much ‘cold, hard reality’ for some.

There is also renewed sympathy for Gordon Brown, fuelled by The Sun’s ill-judged attempt to attack him over errors in his hand-written note to a dead soldier’s mother.

And then there is the biggest obstacle for the Conservatives – the natural tendency of voters, as an election draws closer, to edge towards the devil they know.

Will it last? The latest polls show the gap between Labour and the Conservatives has grown ever so slightly again, to between 11-13 percentage points. That should be enough to deliver an overall majority – but only just. A victory is a victory; but, with a radical agenda to pursue, Mr Cameron would prefer a more sizeable mandate for change.

There are dangers for Gordon Brown, too. You might think a Labour bounce-back would have solidified his position. In fact, it has not. The anti-Brown crowd have begun to wonder again. If we can do this well with him, some are saying, how much could we achieve with someone else?

The good news for the electorate is that politics has become interesting again. An election that looked like a foregone conclusion is beginning to shape up into a real fight. If that brings out the best in both sides – if it means more passionate debate about policies, ideas, visions – then what looked like going down as one of politics’ darkest years could yet end with a ray of hope for the future.

One bad tweet doesn't make you a twit

POOR old Andrew Gwynne. The Denton and Reddish MP – and avid user of the website Twitter – made the mistake of sharing a festive dilemma with his readers.

One the one hand, he had signed up to the 10:10 climate-change pledge. On the other he had, in his own words, lit up his house for Christmas "like the Blackpool illuminations".

Never mind that he had used low-energy LEDs. Within minutes, other users of Twitter were telling apocryphal stories about how Andrew ‘hated the earth’.

"Andrew Gwynne’s Hummer is powered by endangered animals, climate-change activists and seal cubs," wrote one.

"I overheard Andrew Gwynne saying ‘Copenhagen Schmopenhagen’," chipped in another.

Andrew has taken it all in good humour. On a serious note, I hope it doesn’t put him off sharing his thoughts on the website.

He ‘twitters’ about serious matters, too – and fellow MPs could take a leaf out of his book when it comes to using new technology to connect directly with the electorate.

To talk politics with David, visit his blog at http://blogs.menmedia.co.uk/politics. Or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/davidottewell

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