TINKER as his spin doctors may with his visual image, Tory leader William Hague will find that nothing charms the voters - especially the observant ones of Middle England whose sway is crucial - more than a pack of positive policies.

And at long last, after two years in the doldrums, it looks like Mr Hague has found an ace to play in promising to cut taxes for the better-off.

For while much of the government's tax-cutting efforts have been concentrated on reducing the basic rate of income tax and, together with its minimum-wage legislation, improving the lot of the lower income groups, somewhat overlooked have been the those who are among the prime contributors to the Exchequer - the mortgage-paying, ambitious middle-classes who are the driving force of the country's enterprise and economy.

They are the ones paying the higher 40 per cent rate of income tax and, although not poor, most are hardly rich when their earnings of more than £28,000 a year, which put them in this tax bracket, are often funding family budgets with sizeable commitments. It may be that the invisible benefits that they enjoy in the form of low interest rates and low inflation have given growing numbers of them the sort of prosperity that props up the government's popularity, but Mr Hague's targeting of the 2.5-million-strong higher-tax group, which has almost doubled in a decade, is a smart move as nothing buys voters more than a tangible tax cut, even in times of plenty.

Indeed, coming soon after the Tories sprang to the defence of car-owners and their successful tapping of the country's concerns over the fate of the pound in the European elections, it would seem that the hitherto-paralysed Opposition has finally found a widening platform from which to launch a recovery.

If nothing else, it will add ginger to the blandness of the existing politics-of-decree in which the Labour leadership has treated Parliament as a rubber stamp.

Mr Hague's problem thus far has not been his image, but his party's lack of substance.

Now, he is catching up at last on that task.

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