Latest YouGov poll has Tory lead down to nine points

The Telegraph's monthly YouGov poll has the Conservatives on 42%, Labour on 33% and the Liberal Democrats on 15% - a Conservative lead of 9 points. For David Cameron, it is a far cry from the heady days of the summer, where the Conservatives recorded poll after poll of record leads over Labour.

The Liberal Democrats can take few crumbs of comfort from this or any of the other recent opinion polls. The third party is usually squeezed mid-term and relies on more balanced media coverage in the run up to the general election. However, I believe that Nick Clegg is failing to make any progress towards increasing the record number of Lib Dem MPs elected in 2005. In the south the Lib Dems are likely to be challenged strongly by the Tories and it remains to be seen whether the Lib Dems can mobilise sufficient disgruntled Labour voters for them to make any gains in Labour's traditional heartlands.

The Conservatives have been on a downward path since the rumbling credit crunch finally erupted. Gordon Brown's frenetic levels of activity - matched only by the levels of media coverage - have managed to turn around the Labour party's fortunes.

The seemingly sharp poll movements are a reflection not just of turbulent economic times, but of the volatility of the modern electorate. Over the past 12 months, Labour were ahead at the time of the 2007 conference season, leading to speculation that Gordon may go for an early election. A successful Conservative party conference, and in particular, George Osborne's inheritance tax proposals, and the probably more effective, but largely uncredited, proposed levy on non-doms, put an end to that. Brown decided it was too risky to hold an election and acquired a reputation as a ditherer. Since then, the government has been hit by anger over fuel prices, food prices and most damaging of all the 10p tax fiasco, and its poll ratings dived.

During the government's record unpopularity, the Tories recorded a string of electoral successes: in the local elections, the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, and most famously, Boris's triumph over Red Ken in London.

The pendulum has not swung entirely back to Brown, but the Conservative's prospects of an outright victory must look less likely than they were a couple of months ago.

In recent weeks, the Conservatives have been all-at-sea over "Yachtgate", but I still believe that this has been a trivial story, which has already sunk. And I don't think the public are either surprised or care that Osborne (and Mandelson) have been associating with rich Russians on yachts. I'd be very surprised if this has had any impact on the polls.

But unfortunately this isn't the Conservative's only problem. George Osborne, who I credit above, with having saved the Conservatives from having to face Brown's early election last autumn, has simply not been either sufficiently eloquent in his explanations as to what the Conservatives would do to deal with the recession.

Over the past few weeks, I've seen lots of Tory big beasts from the past offering their views on the crisis - from Nigel Lawson through to Ken Clarke and John Redwood. But where has Osborne been? Belatedly, the Shadow Chancellor has said that excessive goverment spending, and its likely depressing effect on the value of the pound and risks to future inflation, would hinder the Bank of England's attempts to fight the recession by lowering of interest rates.

But this doesn't play well with the media. Where's the simple message for the public?

Cameron has tried the simple approach to try and pin the blame on Brown by repeating his much repeated claim of there being "no return to boom and bust", and strategically, I believe this may work, if, people start losing their jobs and homes over the next twelve months. However, it is not without danger. If the recession proves to be more shallow than currently expected, then Gordon will be able to claim that he has steered the country through.

More than anything the Conservatives need to publish a clear set of policies to deal with the recession. Andrew Lilico outlined a series of options for the Tories over on Conservative Home. At the moment, the Conservatives appear to be following option 1 - Muddle along - let tax revenues fall, interest rates fall, and let borrowing to pay unemployment benefits rise.

This isn't a politically sustainable strategy. Cameron and Osborne must set out their own vision. They should be considering a series of limited duration tax cuts. Such cuts do not have to be significant in the overall scale of public spending - but something clear and simple which would benefit everyone. A simple increase in the personal allowance would do this. There will be plenty of opportunities in the future to reduce public debt - perhaps by looking at public sector pensions, which as I note in the previous posting are desperately in need of reform.

Simply shouting at the government from the sidelines is not going to win any converts back to the Cameron camp.