Toryism has found its heart – but must convince us it beats | Matthew d’Ancona

David Cameron has talked up his party's compassion. He needs to act fast to turn rhetoric into concrete policy

If Conservative modernisation has a founding text, it is generally believed to be the speech delivered at a fringe meeting of the party's 1997 conference by Michael Portillo, having been recently ousted from his Enfield Southgate seat. To stand a chance of returning to office, he said, the Tories had "to deal with the world as it now is". The public's recoil from the Conservative party, Portillo insisted, "must be appreciated as a deeply felt distaste, rather than momentary irritation. We cannot dismiss it as mere false perception."

Another contender text would be Michael Ashcroft's book. No, not Call Me Dave, but Smell the Coffee, Ashcroft's collation in 2005 of polling data from the general election campaign of that year. "To the extent that the voters who rejected us in 2005 associate the Conservative party with anything at all it is with the past," he wrote in the introduction, "with policies for the privileged few and with lack of leadership " the brand problem means that the most robust, coherent, principled and attractive Conservative policies will have no impact on the voters who mistrust our motivation and doubt our ability to deliver."

Related: Margaret Thatcher told to show compassion for 'unfortunate' in society

Related: A Tory civil war is brewing, with Europe as the battlefield | Tom Clark

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