One moment the Conservatives are ranting. The next they are wobbling. It raises the question - what is going on inside the Tory mind?

The Tories are clearly readying for a Lynton Crosby full-on attack-dog strategy against Labour.

They and their newspaper friends are painting Ed deep red, which is odd for those of us who wish his pale pink would turn a deeper hue.

Labour is run by a Marxist "sleeper" whose dad hated Britain, the party is taken over by union bully boys and their "leverage" hit squad, MPs are high on the supply from the sex and drug-crazed trendy vicar.

All very Flashman. Then George Osborne has a massive wobble and announced he wants to cap rates for payday lenders, effectively surrendering to one of the few campaigns the Labour Party actually backs.

Then the turnaround on cigarette packaging, another policy pressed by Labour.

We might be worried about Labour's weak stand, but the Tories clearly feel under some pressure from Ed Miliband. What's going on?

It all goes back to the fundamental - the Tories did not win the last election and they know it.

They want to lash out at Labour but are still wrestling with their limited appeal.

This was very clear to me at the last Conservative conference. From the outside it might seem we have a vicious, Tory-led government, but inside the conference there was a lot of disappointment.

The failure to win the election, the lack of room for manoeuvre because of the deal with the Lib Dems and the lack of money in the Treasury all weigh on the Tories.

They are signed up to an attack-dog strategy under Crosby but in fringe meetings some of their wiser heads worry that although this will shore up their core it will stop them appealing to wider voters.

Lord Ashcroft in particular is pushing this line. At a rally of his personal group, Conservative Home, he tried to persuade Tories that "generally in life there are a lot more have-nots than haves and making a promise to that broad spectrum has an effect."

Ashcroft is fantastically rich, on money he made from low-paid privatised cleaners. He isn't worried about Tory appeals to the "have-nots" for charitable reasons. He worries about this because they have votes.

Anxiety even appeared at a packed rally of the very right-wing Free Market Group of MPs, held jointly with the Adam Smith Institute.

Right-wing MP Chris Skidmore was worried about trouble ahead, telling delegates that the "1 per cent cap on public salaries. That cannot sustain itself. Before too long we will see social issues. Strikes etc."

Fellow MP Dominic Raab reflected widespread anxiety about the popularity of Miliband's proposed energy price freeze, which explains why Osborne has given in on the similar payday loan interest rate cap.

Raab told delegates that Miliband "has keyed into a sense that banks and energy companies are a big rip-off."

While Kwasi Kwarteng, one of the Tory right's brighter stars, said "Ed Miliband is thinking big. We may not like his answers, but he is. He's a very bold politician, he's doing what Thatcher did, posing ideas and it's frightening and we've got to match that."

So on the few areas where Miliband has made big, leftish gestures he has unsettled even the toughest Tories.