At a time when almost every family is cutting back on spending, the idea that the State is unable to make savings from its £600billion budget is an insult to voters.

While Gordon Brown appears to think his job is to list all the reasons why he cannot help people with things such as the cost of fuel, the Conservative leader is showing himself more alert to changed times.

No matter that he spent the first two years of his leadership pledging to match Labour’s grandiose spending and downplaying the need for tax cuts. He has now seen sense and is saying things that hardworking families want to hear.

His promise to adhere to “Conservative principles of good housekeeping” is reminiscent of the approach which catapulted Margaret Thatcher to power.

In the Crewe and Nantwich by-election and elsewhere, it is the fall in living standards which is shifting support away from Labour.

When Mr Cameron says that “we have reached the limits of acceptable taxation and borrowing” he is most certainly on the right lines but still lagging slightly behind the electorate.

The truth in most people’s eyes is that those acceptable limits were surpassed long ago.