SOME may think (or want to think) be's hallucinating. But Britain's beleaguered Prime Minister believes he's seen a lot more than Mr Norman Lamont's famed "green shoots" of recovery.
At any rate, there is a marked spring in John Major's step. He feels the return of a "feel good factor" and vows to make it a reality in perception, too.
Three times in a week he has triumphed over Labour's Tony Blair at Commons question time. And in the corridors and tea rooms at Westminster Tory MPs betray a wonderful mix of delight and disbelief.
"What are they putting on his cornflakes?" mused one MP on Tuesday afternoon. "I don't know what it is, but it's working," replied another, a long standing critic who confirmed a dramatic change in the mood of the Conservative parliamentary party.
"We came back here after Christmas convinced nothing could save us," he confessed, "but suddenly the mood is lifting."
The backbencher (who yearned for a Heseltine succession in last year's leadership contest) and the Prime Minister would readily admit the Tory party has a long way still to travel. But he now seemed to mirror his leader's stubborn belief that a Tory victory cannot be ruled out come the general election.
This will come as absolutely no surprise to some "New Labour" supporters who have long marvelled (strictly privately, of course) at the readiness of so many Tory MPs to write off their party's chances. And slowly but perceptibly, many of the doubters are beginning to think they might, after all, be in with a shout.
Mr Major, it must be said, has had more than a helping hand from "New Labour". But he has ruthlessly exploited Mr Blair's embarrassment over education policy; extending the assault to cover the opposition's approach to just about everything from crime to health.
At every turn he asserts a "we were there first" claim - deriding Mr Blair's concept of a "stakeholder" economy, and "New Labour's" declared commitment to partnership between the public and private sectors.
The attacks come wrapped in wounding, scornful language and betray a degree of advance preparation which shows the Tories have not, after all, lost their feel for a good sound bite.
At question time on Tuesday afternoon, the Prime Minister found himself defending the privatised water companies against mounting criticism of their investment record.
Mr Blair charged that customers were being "fleeced" and that the companies required "proper regulation". Mr Major, struggling with a bad cold, countered that the opposition would do well to remember "that governments cannot run companies".
For a moment the Prime Minister appeared to falter. Labour MPs filled the brief silence with jeers before Mr Major delivered the punch line: "I am interested that the opposition disagree with that because I was quoting Mr Blair."
Tory backbenchers roared their approval, taunting Mr Blair to come back to the dispatch box for more. And they returned to the tearooms proclaiming that a strong voice would have made this "win on points" even more convincing.
In any event they were delighted that Mr Major had sustained the pattern set seven days earlier when he scorched Mr Blair, as he and the Labour Party threatened to tear themselves apart over Harriet Harman's decision to send her son to an opted out grammar school.
Ms Harman's decision outraged large sections of a labour party which remains deeply and genuinely wedded to the doctrine of egalitarian education.
Left winger Tony Banks MP went to the heart of the matter with customary zeal. If Ms Harman believed the local schools weren't good enough for her son, then she was saying they weren't good enough for anybody else's kids either.
From the pained expression on his face it was clear that the party's deputy leader, Mr John Prescott, agreed. Mr Ken Livingstone led demands for Ms Harmon's resignation from the shadow cabinet, warning that if she declined, as she did, she would be forced out at the annual election in November.
While Mr Blair rode to her rescue last week, the Tories will look forward to that election with relish. Between now and then they will taunt Mr Blair at every turn on the confusion of Labour's education policy, a policy they characterise as "Do as I say, not as I do".
Mr Major was unsurprised at Mr Blair's defence of Ms Harman, given his earlier decision to send his own son to a school opted out of local authority control: "Harriet Harman was an air raid shelter for Tony Blair."
Earlier in the Commons, Mr Major had been merciless. Of course, Mr Blair would support his embattled colleague. After all, she was merely playing "follow my leader".
Yes, he would welcome as "stake holders" parents who sent their children to grant maintained and grammar schools. Of course, he wouldn't deny any parent the right to make the best choice for his or her child, but he denounced the readiness to deny others the same privilege.
Events, he said, had indeed shown that the Labour Party had changed. "Yesterday's Labour Party said they would abolish grant maintained schools the day after tomorrow. Today's Labour Party say they will abolish them once their children have finished their education."
An alternative view says the country at large is less impressed with this knockabout stuff than the House of Commons and its press corps; that Mr Blair's assertion of his leadership sent precisely the right message to the middle classes whose support he desperately seeks; and that the public will understand the dilemma of parents struggling to make the best choice in a woefully inadequate education system, lamentably not much improved by 16 years of Conservative government.
But that will not stop the Tories asking "the Harriet question". Labour's education spokesman, David Blunkett, had been to the point: "Watch my lips. No selection, either by examination or interview, under a Labour government."
Before Ms Harman made her decision, he had warmed the hearts of Labour's traditionalists, vowing "no truck with middle class, left wing parents who preach one thing and send their children to another school outside the area."
Tortured on the point last week, he could only repeat that Mr Blair had given her his full support. Quite.
Mr Major has now put his party on official "hypocrisy watch", vowing to exploit and expose the tensions (and there are many) between new Labour and old. With tax and mortgage cuts to come, the Grim reaper is for the moment forgotten. If hardly yet an election winning formula, the Tories sense the makings of a campaign.
And few would have put money on that just a month ago.