“We can’t go on like this”

There is no end of the lesson for the Tory party.  Clearly in a blind panic after their recent slump in the polls, ill-thought-out-measures are to be laid before us.

First out of the traps is a proposal to stop next year's rise in national insurance contributions.  The problem is that they haven't worked out how to fund it:

But it would deprive an incoming Cameron government of about £7bn a year of revenue and, to have a credible platform, the party would have to spell out how that would be found.

Next:

The Tory manifesto will include plans to reward marriage in the tax system and to raise the threshold for inheritance tax from £325,000 to £1m.

Oh dear.  Why saying anything until the plans are watertight and it can be proved how they are to be funded.

This, of course, is exactly where Peter Mandelson wants the Tories to be:

To govern is to choose. And if the Tories want the public to choose them, they need to say how they would govern. David Cameron has no manifesto and no mandate. If he doesn't like what we are doing, quite simply, what on tax and spending would he do instead?

Exactly.

Not to worry.  To paper over the cracks of the Tory party’s campaign, Lord Saatchi has been wheeled back in to save the day.  A poster “showing 365 pictures of Gordon Brown will carry a strapline with words which are expected to ask: "Could you really bear another year of this?"

Perhaps it would be better if he produced a poster saying:

Thank God for the trade unions.