Cameron readying the knife?

Andrew Pierce and Toby Helm are obviously helping out with Tory mood music this morning, with a story that Cammers and Boy George are preparing a rethink on spending:

David Cameron is prepared to drop his pledge to match Labour's spending increases after the next election to pave the way for tax cuts under a Conservative government, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The Tory leader, under mounting internal pressure to stretch his party's lead over Labour, has conceded that it could be impossible to deliver tax cuts if he sticks to Gordon Brown's commitments.

An "elegant retreat" has been discussed at the highest level of the party after intense pressure from MPs and grassroot supporters for more eye-catching policy initiatives, particularly on tax.

ConservativeHome is, predictably, gleeful.

No hint as to what that "elegant retreat" might be, but we suspect that there is already a crack blue-blood team of analysts preparing a weighty tome of economists' views which will seek to argue that higher spending is actually damaging the economy. How that will play out on the streets is obvious: tax cuts. We've said it before, we'll say it again: Chris Patten's 1992 election posters are already being unrolled and dusted down in time for the next election. Brown and Darling beware.