Exclusive: Vote of no confidence in Tory economic policies.

As the election gets nearer more and more people want David Cameron to be specific about exactly what he would do were he elected. Cameron has, so far, managed to lead the polls simply by not being Brown, but that poll lead is starting to slip as more people realise that they don't know what it is that he planning to do.

The ComRes survey found that 82 per cent of people want Mr Cameron to be clearer about what he would do on the economy – including 82 per cent of Tory supporters. Only 24 per cent believe the recession would have ended sooner if the Tories had been in power, while 69 per cent do not.

Strangely, it is on the economic front that I find the Tories to be at their weakest, an area in which they have traditionally led Labour.

Cameron's position on the recent economic collapse was shocking. He wanted to simply allow the market to have it's way and argued against intervention of any kind. This was a position which was emulated by no other serious political party.

Yesterday Lord Mandelson attacked the "confusion and disarray" over the Tories' economic strategy. He described Mr Cameron as "bobbing around like a cork in water" and portrayed him and Mr Osborne as a "Laurel and Hardy duo". The Business Secretary said: "David Cameron should level with the British people. If he refuses to be clear, if he will not be honest, people will conclude that – for electoral reasons – he is hiding the truth and that the Conservatives' proposed cuts will indeed eat into the recovery and throw Britain back into recession and lost jobs."

This attack by Labour is long overdue. For months now the Tories have been allowed to speak utter nonsense publicly and for this to remain unchallenged.

For years Cameron and George Osborne were allowed to say more or less anything and the dysfunctional Downing Street machine never challenged them. Apparently part of the conversation between Mandelson and Osborne when they met famously on a boat in the Greek sunshine two summers ago related to the lack of any Labour onslaught against Tory speeches. Over a glass or two Mandelson told Osborne that he thought a speech the Shadow Chancellor had delivered to Demos that August had been preposterous. Osborne gave Mandelson the impression that he could not believe his luck at the lack of any scrutiny from Labour, in respect to that speech or any other. Finally it seems Labour responds.

The Tories are in a terrible mess when it comes to the economy, and can't seem to make up their minds what it is that they intend to do. At first they set out to sound tough, but they have been backpedalling away from that position recently, trying to reassure people that they won't actually do very much at all.

Now Cameron and Osborne choose to sound less austere. They will make a start with public spending cuts, but they will not do very much at first. The emergency budget becomes slightly less of an emergency. They planned to climb Mount Everest and were intending to make a first big leap, but have opted for a little preliminary jog on the ground instead.

It's no wonder that there is public confusion over just what exactly David Cameron is wanting to do, because David Cameron doesn't appear to really know what he wants to do.

He wants what he has always wanted: elected. And he'll say anything if he thinks it will make that more likely.

However,as the election approaches, the public are saying that they want more specifics. Cameron can only get away with being all things to all people for so long. And it feels as if the electorate are running out of patience.

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Tags: David Cameron, Tories, economic policy, UK election 2010