The Tory strategy has always been to 'detoxify' the Conservative brand. Focus groups around the time of the last election showed that people who heard Conservative policies on were often enthusiastic until they heard they were Tory policies. Cameron's agenda was always to get rid of the fact that any policy they came up with, no matter how popular, was immediately dismissed by a large section of the public on account of it being a Tory policy.

Without doubt, when Michael Howard talked about immigration, people assumed that he was being terribly right-wing and were turned off. However, has Cameron removed the Tory's 'nasty party' image enough that he can talk about immigration (and crime over the last few days) without people dismissing it as the 'usual right-wing rubbish'?

Cameron is down in the polls, but I believe this is because of his being seen as weak rather than nasty. It remains to be seen whether he has got rid of the bad image and, if he has, his crime and immigration speeches might help him (by portraying him as strong) as opposed to hinder him (by portraying as nasty).

Has Cameron done enough to ditch the Tory's 'nasty party' image that he can talk about core-vote issues without it scaring away the centrist voters? We'll know in the next month or so.