I will take refuge in the oldest journalistic excuse: it was right when I wrote it. I had taken the temperature among Tories I talked to at the party's spring conference in Gateshead. In my defence, I will quote David Cameron, who told the Daily Mail on Saturday it could be another year before the public gave him an election-winning lead. "We have got to work very hard to convince them we deserved their trust, and that we'll make the right decision in the interests of the country, that we really have changed from the party they rejected in 1997," he said.

I suspect the three polls do not reflect a sudden pro-Tory surge but a hostile reaction to last week's Budget. Nothing wrong with that from Cameron's point of view; Tony Blair capitalised on hostility to John Major's Tory Government to win power. I would counsel caution about whether there has been a permanent shift in Cameron's direction. The Tories were nine points ahead in December but their lead dropped back to four points in January.

All the same, there are plenty of Labour MPs with long faces this week. Some fear the Budget may prove a decisive moment in Labour's decline and fall from power. "It wasn't a do-nothing Budget as it was billed - we put up taxes for drinkers and drivers and are getting punished for it," one told me today. "It was far too complacent about the economy. We look out of touch." A golden opportunity, then, for Cameron to cement his poll lead.