Conservative PPC for Pontefract Nick Pickles writes about Labour stunts and Manchester United fans as he blogs about the second and final day of the Conservative Party's spring conference.

Cometh the hour, cometh the video introduction. Two of them, in fact. Sticking with the themes explored in David Cameron’s speech, the audience saw a highlights package of the modern Conservative Party, and a series of attack lines on Gordon Brown and Labour. Both went down well, with even the press photographers laughing at the clip of William Hague berating Harriet Harperson at PMQs - suggesting she should attend cabinet dressed as a clown.

As for the main event, the hall certainly enjoyed it. No notes, no nonsense — for the 40-odd minutes David Cameron took to the stage today, every moment was crucial, every sentence a potential slip-up. With headlines warning of two point poll leads and even a Labour victory, the stakes couldn’t have been higher.

And in this humble PPC’s opinion, Cameron nailed it. Bobby Kennedy once said: “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly” and certainly this speech bore that out. Once again Cameron showed the tighter the corner he’s in and the higher the stakes, the more he excels. Rather than being the game-changer Labour expects, if Cameron is half as effective in the TV debates as he was today, it’ll be a bloodbath when he comes up against Brown. I just hope the microphones are bolted down.

My train to Leeds is packed with Manchester United fans making their way home from Wembley (presumably taking the scenic route to Surrey) and obviously the question is whether the speech will register with the wider public (heaven forbid people had other things to do than watch Cameron's speech live or read the tweets of those in the room). My taxi driver in Brighton didn’t even know the Conservatives were in town, let alone that Cameron had just spoken. On a poll sample of the three people I’m sharing a table with, two saw the speech, one saw the clips and another had watched on News24. Both said that they were more likely to vote Conservative from what they’d seen, but they wanted more concrete policy announcements similar to the inheritance tax announcement of 2007.

The atmosphere at this Spring Forum was certainly more relaxed than October’s conference. Even with the YouGov poll out this morning, the general consensus was definitely that it doesn’t represent the mood on the doorstep. People have been working hard for years now and there is clearly a real desire to get the election underway, whatever the polls say.

Ironically, quite a few people took heart from Labour’s attempted stunt as David Cameron arrived yesterday. The video van message about George Osborne barely registered, most of the watching cameras didn’t bother covering it. Even when there was a small blockade of socialist worker protestors, they barely hung around long enough to be noticed by too many people.

So, it’s back to constituencies and back to work. Preparations for the election are well advanced, whenever Mr Brown finally chirps up the courage to go to the palace. When he does, I’ll give it a week before Alex Ferguson is stood outside the gates of Buckingham Palace berating the Queen that surely there’s another few more days to go before the curtains are finally drawn on this shambolic government.