I blogged yesterday about the transparent dishonesty of Labour's position on spending. Well, it seems the press aren't buying it either. Today's coverage is almost universally negative. A damning editorial in The Sun is matched by equally incredulous comment right across the media. This is seriously bad news for Labour. Without the ability to frame the election around the issue of Tory cuts they really are done for. The lines you will hear repeated most often and with growing desperation in the lead up to the election are the following; ‘The Do Nothing Party’, ‘The Same Old Tories’, and the excruciating one about not ‘walking on by’.

What binds each element of this attack together is the spending argument. If this fails to resonate, their whole election strategy falls apart. Their ability to paint Cameron as public relations gloss masking the same old nasty party rests on public support for more spending. Judging by today’s press, this is a gross miscalculation. It plays to a neuralgic fear of swingeing Tory cuts that is simply no longer there. The public know the state of the finances, they know year-on-year increases cannot continue and are ready to listen to an argument for restraint. The public mood has shifted on this issue. Whatever their internal polling is telling them, cries of ‘Tory Cuts!’ do not play as well as Labour strategists think they do. People just do not buy it. And so the Tories really need to get out in front on this issue. The public are already there. They are braced for spending reductions and want a party that gives it to them straight.

The key for the Tories is to turn this new mood to their advantage. I have argued repeatedly and at length that Tory reticence on this issue is unworthy of a party that aspires to government. I have argued that the Tories should be making the case for sound money much more forcefully. That argument strengthens with each passing day. The stifling consensus on public spending that has sustained Labour’s appeal over the last decade is crumbling before our eyes. What we need now is for the Tories to make the argument for spending restraint often, openly, with conviction and without apology.

UPDATE: Iain Dale makes a similar argument here