David Cameron may not like the idea, but he's been hit by a hurricane Next week is Mr Cameron's third party conference as Prime Minister. The last time that the mid-term of a Conservative prime minister coincided with economic misery was in 1981, when Margaret Thatcher was in charge. In some ways, Mr Cameron's situation now is better than hers was then. He faces no serious leadership challenge - at least not from anyone currently sitting in the House of Commons. He is not demonised by the media, and his poll ratings are higher than hers were. His grip on power is not menaced by political strikes. In some ways, too, his Government is addressing problems just as firmly as Mrs Thatcher did. It is cutting the deficit (though increasing the national debt). It is slicing away the privileges of public sector union members. Under Michael Gove, it is reforming schools with a freedom which Mrs T, who once held Mr Gove's job, would have envied and admired. The difference, though, is that Mrs Thatcher acted, in relation to economic policy, as if her life depended on it. She believed that she was - and she presented herself as - the person whose great task was the recovery of Britain. In doing this, she linked economic success with the personal success of voters and with national pride. As a result, her party conference in 1981, though swirling with plots by high-ups to oust her, was a festival of fervent party support for what she was doing. I was there, and I remember how the surging mob of protesting Lefties outside energised the party members in favour of their leader. Her battle was their battle, and it made them feel patriotic to be fighting it. Next week in Birmingham, it won't be like that. Indeed, it will be the other way round. It is not the fellow Cabinet ministers or the BBC who fret about the leadership. It is the poor bloody party infantry and the backbench members of Parliament. The former feel unrewarded, taken for granted. The latter feel positively insulted. Some of this is the unavoidable result of coalition. But a lot of it is the result of a belief that the leadership lacks direction, passion and a clear commitment to the common good. A year ago, it seemed an advantage that Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer were so well bonded in their political strategy. A year later, that strategy looks more like mere tactics, and this calls the motives of George Osborne's economic policy into question. As for Mr Cameron, unnerved by the effects of his over-close association with the Murdoch media, he seems in self-protective mode. The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, is Jeeves to his Wooster, keeping him out of trouble and getting more power over him in return. All this makes those who lead us seem remote from everyone else. It has helped create a gap in politics. This week in Manchester, Ed Miliband moved boldly in to fill it. It is true that Labour have not understood or admitted their atrocious economic failure in office. Until they do so, they will not be able to formulate a new policy. Few yet believe that Mr Miliband has an aptitude for what Mitt Romney calls "getting the job done." The Tories must belatedly and loudly point this out next week. But Mr Miliband has correctly spotted that the Tory vision of why they are doing what they are doing has atrophied. The message of basic "We're all in this together" decency, which was powerful, but always a bit vague, has grown less powerful, and vaguer. Along comes Mr Miliband and says that he is what Mr Cameron thinks he is - a One Nation man. It isn't a policy, but it is more than a slogan. It is an approach, a non-sectarian way of answering public anxiety about a divided and selfish society in hard times. To understand its undermining effect on Mr Cameron's self-image, imagine if a Labour leader in the Eighties had managed to present himself as a better steward of the national finances than Mrs Thatcher. It does the Tories" heads in. Next week, Mr Cameron will probably succeed in patronising Mr Miliband. "This man burbles on about who he thinks he is," he can say, "but I want to talk about what I am doing." Fair enough: if Labour found itself in government tomorrow, it would not have the faintest idea what to do. But Mr Cameron's audience, both in party and country, does also need a much bolder linkage between pain and gain, a much stronger analysis of the state we're in, and the way through it. One thing that he will certainly say is that the plight of the eurozone is making Britain's recovery much more difficult. He has so far been curiously timid about the next step in the argument, which is that our relationship with the EU that has created this virtually permanent crisis must change because of it. It needs to be renegotiated, and the result of that renegotiation should then be referred to the voters. You cannot really be a nation at all, let alone One Nation, if your citizens cannot decide who runs your economy and makes your laws. Mr Cameron should say this now, or "One Nation" Ed will get in and say it for him.