THESE should be happy times for the Leader of the Opposition. After six years in office, the honeymoon period for this Government has ended and its popularity is waning.

There is growing discontent at the scope of improvements to public services and concern about the health of the economy.

The Prime Minister appears intent on going to war against Iraq, despite widespread public opposition and a significant rebellion within his own parliamentary ranks.

It is political tradition on occasions like these for normal opposition parties to take full advantage.

But the modern Conservative Party is not normal.

A normal opposition party would not focus attention on its own divisions just ahead of important council elections when the Government was itself in difficulties.

The potential for the Tories to press the self-destruct button on their own fortunes appears to be infinite.

It is too simplistic to blame the Conservative Party's troubles on Michael Portillo.

The simple truth is that any political party with belief in itself and its leader can easily brush aside criticism.

The Conservative Party, however, does not enjoy such unity of purpose.

It has suffered two wounding General Election defeats because of in-fighting, and appears not to have learned lessons from those reversals.

After 18 months as party leader, Mr Duncan Smith must start stamping his authority on the party and start mapping out a clearly defined set of beliefs and values.

Unless he does so, the seeds of discontent sown by Mr Portillo may be scattered further afield.

Yesterday Mr Duncan Smith insisted that the Tories had a very good chance of winning the next General Election and him becoming Prime Minister.

Those are very ambition words for a man who has yet to prove to the Conservatives, let alone the country at large, that he is the right person to lead the party into that election.