It's all about the spin

You have to hand it to the Tories. There was a wee blip when they let Cameron speak for himself in Scotland. There was a certain exaggeration to his 'buy Trident because otherwise the North Koreans will nuke us' and definite uncertainty to 'giving up Trident will cost Scotland 400 or 4000 or - well - a helluva lotta  jobs.' As far as I can see, the Yes Campaign only has to make sure there's a few more visits from Cameron before the referendum and we're home and dry.

But otherwise the Tproes have got the spin-doctoring dead right the past few weeks and their spokesmen (no women that I can see, but hey, that's just one feature in which the Tory party resembles the Bullingdon Club) were bang on message.

I especially appreciated the well-briefed Tory spokeman on C4 news who blamed Balls, Brown and Blair for the current state of the economy but refused point blank to recognise the role the Tories played in getting us where we are now. Tory deregulation of the finance markets in the late 70s and 80s - ancient history! Osborne's willingness to agree with Brown that regulation was not acceptable in 2006 - irrelevant. Takes selective memory to a new level.

The spin doctors have done an especially fine job on 'welfare'. Persuading the British public that people on benefits are scroungers rather than mostly people who've paid in and now need help. Spreading the word that £26,000 is the average payout on benefits instead of the maximum anyone can get. Not just implying (Osborne) but saying outright that Mick Phillpott killed his children because he was a 'welfare scrounger' (thanks, Daily Mail, friend of the Tory party) whose lifestyle was financed by us, quite overlooking the fact that he was a violent and controlling abuser who demanded the pathetic earnings his 'partners' got from cleaning.

All that's so masterly it has clearly caught the Lib Dems and Labour on the back foot, partly because a lot of it has happened in the Easter parliamentary recess. Apart from Danny Alexander, it seems no one from the Lib Dems has been available to be amazed at anything the Tories say - and let me remind us all the Lib Dems claim worse things would be happening if they weren't there to hold the Tories back.

At least the Lib Dems haven't fallen into the trap of the knee-jerk reaction, unlike Labour, who now want to talk about 'people getting back from welfare what they put in.' See, I might accept that approach if I thought the 5 million carers in this country who are currently saving the NHS and Social Work a fortune by keeping their disabled and elderly family members in their own home got rewarded for their efforts. Or if the employers who now depend on welfare funding to top up their employees' wages had to pay the living wage. Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen.

What is going to happen - unless the other parties get their act together - is that the Tories will be in for another term. After all, they can now claim they have a mandate from the electorate for a 'popular' root and branch reform of the welfare state. Heaven help us all. Is that enough to frighten the Lib Dems and Labour into action? I hope so.