Power beckons for the Tories, but are they ready for it?  David
Cameron has brought his party to the brink of government. Now we
need more clarity about what he would do with it  The
Conservatives gather for their conference in Manchester this
week knowing that the next election is for them to lose. Nothing
that happened at Labour's gathering in Brighton changed the
settled conviction among most of the government's senior figures
that they are headed for defeat.  By choosing yesterday to
announce that Gordon Brown will take part in leaders' television
debates, Labour was clearly hoping to do a spoiler on the Tory
conference build-up. Yet that was also a further sign of Number
10's desperation about the government's unpopularity. No
previous prime minister has conceded to a debate because no
previous prime minister has wanted to give equality of status to
his opponents. Mr Brown has agreed to head-to-head combat with
the other leaders only because he has nothing left to lose.
Peter Mandelson, in his extraordin