PAUL WILENIUS:                Looking back may not be 
the best thing for a political party wanting to move forward. The Conservative 
leader's in America this weekend picking up tips on sprucing up his own 
party's image to make it more inclusive, modern, electable.  It needs it, 
as the party's popular support is at a standstill.

                        Under Iain Duncan Smith 
the Conservatives are portraying their party as one that cares about hospitals, 
schools and the vulnerable and not just the Euro and immigration. There's 
little doubt the language has changed and it's more inclusive, but critics 
are asking is this just polishing up the old image or is it really something 
new? They want to see real change in action and policy, to match the rhetoric.

                        The scale of the task 
involved was admitted by Dominic Cummings, a senior Tory strategist, last 
week. He said the party was even more unpopular than the Euro in Britain. 
In an effort to collect more electoral support the leadership is talking 
constantly about public services. Yet a leading Conservative think tank 
says it's also vital to avoid old Tory privatisation policies, to show 
its leader IDS really is new.
 
NICHOLAS BOLES:                The Party is absolutely 
right to be focusing on the public services, because that's what people 
in Britain are focusing on.  The party must be very careful not to fall 
into an easy characterisation of privatisation as the only solution for 
the public services.

WILENIUS;                    The Tories have also 
expunged their traditional  tax cutting message.  Now they say they favour 
funding public services first. But do they really mean it? Although modernisers 
in the party welcome the new approach from IDS and his Shadow Ministers, 
there are concerns that recent actions may have sent a contradictory message.

BOLES:                    Michael Howard as Shadow 
Chancellor was absolutely right to say that the proper funding and reform 
of public services, was more important right now than cutting taxes. He 
was absolutely right to say that. It perhaps sent a conflicting signal 
when the party then decided to oppose, vote against, the tax rises in the 
budget, rather than for instance abstain.

WILENIUS;                    In recent weeks the Tory 
Party has seemed to reject other opportunities to buff up its new image 
 The leader took a hard line on asylum in a recent article in the Daily 
Mail. While in Parliament, the party opposed legislation to give unmarried 
couples the right to adopt, even though forty per cent of children in the 
UK are born to unmarried parents. The chance to show the party had changed 
was lost.  
 
BOLES;                    I think that in the debate 
about adoption and in the continuing debate about asylum, there have recently 
been some signals sent which conflict with the overall direction set by 
the leader and that was unfortunate, and it does need to be avoided in 
future. Iain Duncan Smith has clearly set a new direction and adopted some 
very new and striking themes for the Conservative Party. What is important 
is that, that is now followed through in detailed policy work and that 
the Party and the Shadow Cabinet do not get distracted by the opportunities 
of cheap shot politics.

WILENIUS;                    Getting the Tories moving 
again after two crushing election defeats is a big task for any leader. 
Iain Duncan Smith has put them back on the road with a more inclusive approach. 
Now he has three years to show this is not just a makeover, and he can 
follow up with policies and action to put his party back in the political 
fast lane.