LEADING ARTICLE:Feel-bad for Tories

Yesterday the nation's kids hunted for eggs, but now in other quarters the search is on for a very special delicacy. It's more savoury than a Perigord truffle, more valuable than a Beluga sturgeon; it needs to be handled more carefully than the grapes for a Trockenbeerenauslese. It is the green shoot - sweeter to Tory politicians than any new season's asparagus - of recovery in the "feel-good factor".

This is a versatile plant. It takes the form of increased numbers of golfers teeing off, record numbers breaking away for Easter, more staff at Dixons, greeters at Tesco, April changes in the tax code, maturing Tessas and - the most eagerly sought-after beast in the menagerie - signs of upturn in house prices.

These are a motley crew of indices. Some of them are solid enough, like the revival that is certainly occurring in certain regional housing markets, though only for certain categories of house. That housing markets are stirring should come as no surprise to anyone who has read the Government's own projections for the numbers of households currently being created and how much they exceed the numbers of houses and flats currently available. That more people are taking holidays follows from the fact that national income has actually been rising recently, making us all better-off.

The science of feel-good is as fraught with indeterminism as quantum physics. Even if this past weekend had seen moving and stretching in the markets that were more than just spring springing, would that be good news for the Tories? The answer is no. Psephologists and students of political attitudes consistently say that feeling better may actually permit people to opt for the alternative. More important, having once felt bad, electors do not let off the party responsible as soon as they feel the worst is over.