IT was eerily back to the future.

Blue Dave transmogrified into 70s sitcom star Tom Good, seeking the "good life" with SamCam as lovely Barbara, Theresa May as the battleaxe Margot and George Osborne as the hapless Gerry.

As he launched the Tory manifesto, the shiny-haired premier used the phrase "a good life" over and over again, emphasising the point to the good folk of Surbiton and beyond that if they did not choose the Tories again, their lovely suburban lifestyles would be threatened by those Miliband socialist louts from down the council estate.

The 70s/80s theme was underscored when the PM fired up the Quattro of Thatcher's landmark right to buy policy, extending it to housing associations and echoing his heroine about how he wanted to build a property-owning democracy.

Having been criticised for making the campaign personal against stab-in-the-back Ed, it was time for Dave to be upbeat, positive, visionary even.

Britain, we were told, was an "exemplary country", not so much a precious stone set in a silver sea but "the bright light in the North Sea".

After Red Ed had performed his "deathbed conversion", as the Conservatives like to put it, to fiscal responsibility, it was time for the Tory toff to crossdress and woo the ordinary folk of Britain, declaring that the Tories were now the party for the "working people".

In another phrase lifted from a 70s sitcom, Reggie Perrin, Blue Dave declared, CJ-like, how "I didn't come into politics..." to become some high-powered accountant who just wanted to balance the books. He wanted to transform Britain into a better country, where children could make the most of their God-given talents.

Unlike Labour's launch where the comrades whooped and whistled, the Tory presentation was more sedate, polite and a bit churchy.

The good reverend Cameron told his congregation that his aim in politics was to make the lives of ordinary hard-working citizens easier and better. "That's why I'm here," he declared to nodding heads. He even revived that old favourite "modern, compassionate Conservatism".

As he clenched his fists and pointed his fingers to underline one political point after another, emotion finally came through at the end when he insisted Conservatism was not some high and mighty abstract theory but a set of down-to-earth values for the grafters. Someone in the audience even whistled with enthusiasm.

"People whose patriotism may be quiet but whose love for this country is deep and great. And I share it. I am above all a patriot. I love my country with all my heart."

As the PM gushed, some among the stone-hearted hacks found it difficult not to laugh.