Chipping Barnet MP THERESA VILLIERS celebrates Conservative leader David Cameron's recent surge in popularity.

We Conservatives have been pinching ourselves this week. We are finding it hard to believe the dramatic turnaround in our political fortunes.

Just a couple of weeks ago, with Gordon Brown riding high in the opinion polls, few would have predicted David Cameron's dramatic comeback.

So how has the Conservative under-dog managed to pull off the same feat as the England rugby team playing Australia and come out on top when so many people had written us off?

Much of this is due to the Prime Minister's extraordinary dithering. Far from ushering in a new era of straight-talking, bipartisan Govern-ment, Mr Brown's general election debacle shows he is as much a spinner as he ever was.

I found it astounding that Mr Brown had convinced so many people he was different from his predecessor. After all, we had ten years of budgets from him which had to be carefully dissected before the small print revealed all the extra stealth taxes he was imposing, when his budget speech was full of 'good news' and giveaways.

This past week or so has shown he has not changed, and nor has the Labour Government. Many were shocked by Mr Brown's politicised visit to Iraq to try to upstage the Conservative Party Conference.

Spinning a few budgets is nothing compared to over-stating the number of troops coming home from a difficult and dangerous war. How many servicemen and women and their families had their hopes dashed when they found out the truth? And then there was the opening of a hospital that had been open for four months. Does he think the public are so gullible that they will fall for these cheap political tricks?

Mr Brown could have shut down the fevered General Election speculation at any time. Instead, he deliberately sent out his most trusted lieutenants, Douglas Alexander and Ed Balls, to ramp up the issue in the media. The truth is that he and his henchmen became victims of their own spin. They started to believe their own propaganda. What started out as a gimmick to try to unnerve the Conservatives took on a life of its own.

Rather than focusing on the issues we care about in Barnet and across the country - improving the NHS and saving Chase Farm Hospital; raising standards in schools; supporting our servicemen fighting overseas; getting first time buyers on the housing ladder - Mr Brown was obsessing about his poll rating and devising a strategy to cling to office.

His political honeymoon is well and truly over - brought to a sudden halt by his own indecision and by Mr Cameron's daring fightback. George Osborne's promise to lift the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million will strike a chord with many people, as will the other changes Mr Cameron wants to put in place to make life better for people. It is just a pity we will now have to wait two years for the changes we need.