The fatal contradiction at the heart of the Tory message: there is no money, except for people we like.

Next year’s general election looks like being the most gruesomely entertaining in years. Entertaining because no-one knows what is going to happen; gruesome because of the protagonists and the sorry misfortune that someone has to win it. All we can say for certain is that the Lib Dems will receive a doing.

I still don’t think that person will be David Cameron. In part for reasons previously detailed here. The single biggest thing preventing a thumping Labour victory is Ed Miliband. This is, it is true, a sturdy peg upon which the Tories may hang their hopes but it still may not prove sturdy enough.

Not least because, by the standards they set themselves, this government has failed. It came to power promising to put Britain’s finances in order. By any sensible measurement it has signally failed to do so. As Fraser put it the other day, the Prime Minster and his Chancellor are scurrying around the country misleading people.