Has Cameron made his first major mistake?

With the polls tightening and neo-liberal ideology out of fashion, has David Cameron been forced into his first major mistake with his pledge to cut public spending if elected in 2010?

At every general election since 1997 the Labour party has been able to paint the Tories as the ones who will rob schools and hospitals of much needed investment. By planning to match Labour spending plans, as Labour promised to match Tory plans in 97, they had neutered that political argument. So what has changed?

Well, Cameron will be hoping that he can point out to the public that excessive borrowing means significant tax rises in the future. Secondly, if the pre-budget splurge of fiscal stimulus fails to rescue the economy, he will be able to claim the title of the prudent manager who would have done a better job. He's probably calculating that he can make that charge stick, as unemployment is forecast to rise significantly for the next 12 months at least, with growth not predicted to pick up until spring 2010 at the very earliest. He also, no doubt, thinks that Labour will be forced into cutting their own spending projections for 2010/11 because of borrowing rises. The Chancellor's reaction to the statement seems to suggest that he may have misjudged Labour's intentions on that point.

The less rational interpretation of his u-turn are that they are driven by restless backbenchers who are desperate to be able to put tax cuts and smaller government in their general election manifesto. Expecting tax cuts to be announced in the pre-budget report, he was forced into making a policy chang to allow him to present that argument on Monday.

Of course, in stark contrast to 2001 and 2005, there is a new political landscape now: the Liberal Democrats are also pledging to cut public spending by £20 billion. That would leave only Plaid and the SNP in a position where they could attack the Labour party from the left.