As the Conservative Party conference began last weekend, the man who bankrolled much of the 2010 Tory campaign delivered a bleak warning.

Lord Ashcroft gave the faithful the wake-up call he clearly thought they needed.

Polls showed Labour was on course to win a comfortable majority in 2015, he said.

The Conservatives were losing the support of many who had backed them the last time.

And they were failing to win over new voters.

His message came only hours after the Tories were rocked by the defection of a second MP to their arch rivals Ukip.

The warning also came on top of the resignation of a minister over alleged explicit "sexting".

And yet. And yet. Rather than be depressed, the mood among activists could only be described as relentlessly upbeat.

The party that spent the last week in Birmingham is not one that believes that it is out of this race. Not by a long shot.

There was no sense that the Conservatives had to make a desperate last-ditch attempt to win over voters.

In fact, it was almost enough to make you wonder if the Tories had got confused and were reading a different set of opinion polls than the rest of the world.

One Conservative minister asked why the party was so confident despite the defections, the sex scandal and the poll ratings had two just words of explanation: "Ed Miliband."

It was also instructive that as he introduced David Cameron yesterday Michael Gove told the conference that he had "really rather enjoyed the last few days" and that the reasons the members were so relentlessly positive included a "leader that we believe in".

The Tories think the public have already made next year a presidential-style General Election and that many voters already have an unease about Mr Miliband as Prime Minister.

And the Conservatives are prepared to exploit that feeling. An interesting strategy emerged yesterday. The party believes their man is the best leader. But voters also like so-called "retail" policies, promises of things politicians would do for them, if elected. Still the party is behind in the polls.

Yesterday the faithful who waved their unions flags at David Cameron were anything but shy.

Will a presidential election be enough to get swing voters behind them? Or are there enough "shy Tories" - those not willing to admit to pollsters they are voting Conservative - out there to get them over the finish line?