Fraser Nelson is without doubt my favourite political journalist.

I buy the News of The World every Sunday, just to read Fraser and the Spectator are lucky to have him as their political editor.

I was therefore slightly perplexed to read the following quote on Sunday.
"Osborne can do it. He must pledge to cut wasteful spending, split the proceeds between tax cuts and debt repayment."

This is exactly what Oliver Letwin promised to do prior to the 2005 election. It’s what the James Review (the Conservative version of Gershon) was all about.

It wasn’t believed and didn’t work then, why would it now? I would be really interested to know why Fraser thinks it would. As a political message it’s the right one and the approach I favour, but one we will never have the opportunity to deploy unless we are in power.

If the message didn't penetrate as a real one with the voters in 2005, why would we use it again, knowing it has a track record of failure?