Battered Cameron would be 'delighted' to fight snap election

Gordon Brown has been reported to have pencilled in October 25 as a possible General Election date.

Mr Cameron's declaration, during an interview with GMTV, comes amid reports of discontent within his own party, poor results at the opinion polls and a string of PR blunders which have portrayed Cameron in a bad light.

Yesterday ex-frontbencher Graham Brady accused Cameron of failing to make sufficient headway among voters in the North and Midlands, warning Cameron's appeal was restricted to liberal metropolitan circles in and around London.

Meanwhile, former party chairman Lord Saatchi has criticised Cameron's focus on branding and urged him to appeal to voters on the economy.

Lord Saatchi, who masterminded the advertising campaign behind Margaret Thatcher's 1979 election victory, said all of Mr Cameron's efforts so far had been "to no avail".

"Not a single poll in a single month in the past 15 years has given the Conservative Party a sufficient lead to win a general election," he wrote in the Mail's sister newspaper the Evening Standard.

Earlier Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague and Shadow Home Secretary David Davis issued a "don't panic" plea to MPs and activists.

Mr Cameron told GMTV: "We have got the candidates selected in our marginal seats, we have raised money for that election, we have a team working on a manifesto, our policy reviews are coming out with really strong ideas."

Defending his recently criticised trip to Rwanda while parts of the UK were deluged by floods, he said: "There is a huge link between what is happening here and what is happening in Africa and we do need politicians who understand what is going on in Africa and the source of some of the problems we face."

Those closest to the Tory leader are reported to be blaming eachother for Gordon Brown's recent surge in the opinion polls.

Party sources have accused the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne of underestimating the extent of Mr Brown's political honeymoon.

One said: "George made a major error by going round trashing Brown and saying Labour would be finished the moment he took over."

Tory MPs are also concerned at Mr Cameron's reliance on the marketing guru Steve Hilton, who is the architect of the leader's new brand of modern Conservatism.

But Mr Hague insisted that the Tories were still "a strong and united team".

He said: "David Cameron has a very broad national appeal. You saw a really serious Conservative advance in the North of England in the local elections in May. Not universal across the North of England, but certainly the biggest advance we have made for very many years.

"So I don't buy this argument that Conservatives can only make progress in certain parts of the country."