Stan Greenberg, the US pollster close to Gordon Brown, has been trying to find reasons to be cheerful in Manchester this week. "Cameron's numbers are not impressive," he told a lunchtime fringe meeting today.
That's a big claim given Labour seems convinced it is going to lose. Does it stack up?
I don't think so. He is right that the outstanding Cameron weakness is inexperience – voters are not yet persuaded he is tough enough for the job. But that should offer Labour little comfort while Gordon Brown remains its leader. His unpopularity is off the scale.
Concentrating on Cameron's problems without addressing Brown's seems evasive. Yet Deborah Mattinson, Brown's polling adviser, did exactly this at a Unite fringe meeting yesterday.
The reality is that Labour is now doing worse than the Tories did under John Major at the same point in the political cycle.
Only Guardian-ICM polls can really be compared with the 1990s, since other companies have changed the way they calculate results.
It's true, as Greenberg said today, that the Tories are not quite matching Labour's performance at the time – and that as the polls narrow before polling day David Cameron's hopes of a big majority could evaporate.
But that doesn't mean Labour is going to win.
Take these numbers. In September 1995, at the equivalent conference to this week's in the political cycle, Labour was on 48% to the Conservatives' 31%.
In Guardian's most recent ICM poll, the Conservatives were on 44% - four points lower than New Labour's 1995 conference performance. But Labour was on 29% - two points lower than John Major managed. So the current opposition lead is 15 points – against 17 in 1996.
The difference is that smaller parties are doing better now, not that Labour is fighting off the Tory threat. The total opposition vote is larger today than that of the 1990s.
