That was then. This is now.

Brown is hoping to create a situation in which the perception is that he is trying to save the economy while the Tories are just trying to protect their rich friends. Yes such a narrative is rubbish, but it could be politically potent.

I doubt it. Not any more.

James Forsyth is falling into the same trap as Brown's spin merchants. They are all fighting old battles under old paradigms.

Cameron's astute work over three years has succeeded in taking public opinion past the carefully created accusations of toffery and class interest (oh please, Gordon, don't make me laugh) which are no longer believed and are irrelevant in public discourse despite the very best efforts of the Dinosaur Duo, Kevin Maguire and Polly Toynbee, even with John Humphrys, Andrew Marr and Nick Robinson as backing singers.

One only has to look at the opinion polls including the most recent which the BBC has totally forgotten to mention despite its consistency with those of the past year, preferring to refer back to the previous, aberrant poll which was, in the view of polling experts, an outlier for sampling reasons and no guide at all to national opinion. They show a solid Conservative lead, with Labour and the LibDems taking points from each other in a wave pattern, depending on how much exposure Gordon Brown gets one week and Vince Cable the next. (Mandy must wish he could take Cable out of the equation so that he could get on with the main business of defeating the Tories without that important distraction.)

At the next election, Brown and company will be thrown from a high window by voters in the teeth of a howling recessionary gale which will be believed by sufficient numbers of people to have been caused by Gordon Brown's profligacy. Those who would never vote Tory will either stay home or vote LibDem.

The electorate is already ready for its cyclical change, constantly muttering 'Time to trow the buggers out'. The electorate has decided that on balance it likes Cameron's Conservatives, a fact the BBC prefers not to dwell on and not to tell you. Salome Brown's last couple of veils are about to to be blown away by the economic wind, revealing the unappealing flab beneath.

All the Tories need to do in the election campaign (starting now) is ram home the truth that every single Labour government has ended in economic collapse and this one is no different.

Good bye, Gordon.