The argument made for coalition in May 2010 was that it would give the country stable and reliable government. In a swathe of important areas it is now providing the opposite of what its advocates predicted.

Yet the Tories seem in better heart than they were a year ago. Without being too Osbornite or poll-obsessed about it, in general Labour is not registering the kind of lead the party's strategists know they need to be recording consistently at this stage in the parliament. Ed Miliband has yet to make a connection with enough of the electorate. His party's case is weak, its prospectus thin. The Tories are still regularly polling in the 30s, and quite often in the mid-30s, while Ken Clarke regales Conservative Cabinet members with tales of how much worse it was at times in the 1980s at the depths of Margaret Thatcher's unpopularity. Landslides followed.

No one is predicting that, but there has been a definite lightening of the Tory mood. This parliament is now past the halfway mark, and even if the coalition survives it has only a couple of years left to run. The climb to the next election starts now. Barring the sudden arrival of a meteorite in SW1, Cameron will lead his party into that contest, and for all but his most hardened internal critics the view will be that the Tories had better make of it what they can.

In the Conservative parliamentary party the atmosphere certainly seems to have improved since the summer, with the Prime Minister's team in No 10 making efforts to pay more attention to the concerns of MPs. While there are still plenty of rebels among their number, as the vote calling on Cameron to demand a cut in the European budget showed, the private criticism of the Tory leader has become noticeably less caustic and personal in recent months.  

The Lib Dem determination to kill off the boundary changes is a factor, of course. In the coalition agreement Clegg signed up to a reduction in the number of Westminster seats, to correct the anomalies which which have long disadvantaged the Conservatives. Clegg has since reneged in a huff because Tory backbenchers killed off his plan for a largely elected House of Lords.