AS the Tories gather in Bournemouth, the party finds itself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The revelation of an affair in the 1980s between John Major and Edwina Currie has cast everything else in the shade - apart from imprisoned Tory grandee Jeffrey Archer, who never stays in the shadows for long.

Lord Archer continues to do his bit to remind people of the party's less reputable side by publishing his prison diaries.

The opinion polls do not help either. One published in a national newspaper today indicates that only ten per cent of voters believe the Tories look like a government in waiting.

At the weekend, a TV station poll found that twice as many people now thought the Liberal Democrats were providing better opposition to the Government.

What an utter shambles. We are in the mid-term of this administration, a period at which all governments are usually vulnerable. Yet the Conservative Party seems unable to provide any sort of decent opposition or to scratch Tony Blair's Teflon popularity.

Instead, the party comes together for its conference with the traditional grumbling about its leader.

Lord Heseltine, that aged lion of the party, issued one of his customary, if now faded, roars, apparently telling friends that Iain Duncan Smith "has got to go" because he was making no impact. He later refused to comment, but such a pointed silence surely spoke volumes of sour discontent.

After a year leading his party, Mr Duncan Smith has yet to prove himself. He has not raised the profile of the Tory party. And he has not made clear what exactly the Tories stand for.

While he ploughs on, the party bickers. The Tories have always been good at tearing themselves to shreds and at attacking their own leaders.

Now they are at it again.

Mr Duncan Smith has told us he would announce 25 new policies, with announcements expected on education and health.

Sadly for the Tories, New Labour has stolen the centre ground so successfully that it remains difficult to see how Mr Duncan Smith can define his party's present role.

Updated: 11:06 Monday, October 07, 2002