Election victory 'not guaranteed'
Updated on 28 February 2010
Conservative leader David Cameron has put a brave face on a dramatic decline in his the party's opinion poll lead.
He told the Tory spring conference: "They don't hand general election victories on a plate to people in this country".
A YouGov survey for the Sunday Times had the Conservatives at only 2 per cent above Labour, making a Gordon Brown victory at the general election a possibility for the first time in months.
Mr Cameron told his activists they now had a real fight on their hands.
He said: "This election was always going to be close, this election was always going to be a real choice - Labour or Conservative, Gordon Brown or me and this election was always going to be a real fight for our party, a fight to make sure we serve the country we love and that is the fight that we are going to have.
Mr Cameron said he was "really proud" of his shadow cabinet team: "I'm proud of the fact that we work together, that we work with each other. We actually like working with each other."
He said British troops were the "Best of British" and one of the great privileges as Tory leader he had was visiting them in Afghanistan each year.
He said: "You just come away struck with the dedication, the professionalism, the brilliance, the courage of these people.
"I know that everyone at this conference will want to send the clearest possible signal to all those on our Armed Services we salute you , we honour you, we support you, we will always equip you properly, we will back your families, we will help you in all circumstances because frankly you are the best of British."
Mr Cameron mocked Mr Brown's claims to be "some sort of economic genius" and promised to target his record during the election campaign.
"What sort of genius is it that doubles the national debt? What sort of genius is it that takes one of the best pension systems in the world and wrecks it?" he said
"That's not genius, that's incompetence and at this coming election we are going to out your (Mr Brown's) record and tear it apart piece by piece."
He dismissed Labour's claims that it was too early to start tackling Britain's record #178 billion deficit as "nonsense".
He said that if no action was taken to start reducing debt interest rates would go up, confidence would drain away and the country would "go back into a deeper, darker recession."
He said that as prime minister he would go out to sell Britain to the rest of the world.
"I want a really clear message to go out that Britain is under new economic management and we are open for business again," he said.
