After grim Osborne, where’s sunny Dave?

So, we're all in this together and it's going to be hell. Nice one, George. The austerity plan set out by the shadow chancellor in Manchester yesterday includes a one-year pay freeze for five million public sector workers... the withdrawal of tax credits from families who are well-off enough to do without... the raising of the retirement age for men from 65 to 66 from 2016, ten years earlier than Labour were planning... and, the Mole's personal favourite, a requirement that anyone planning to pay a public sector boss more than the PM gets - £198,000 - will have to clear it with George Osborne first.

That's assuming he is the next Chancellor.

The Mole said last week, when Gordon Brown was enjoying a bounce in the opinion polls, that no instant polls are worth reading until the conference season is over. He sticks by that.

Will voters be persuaded by Osborne's "I dare to tell you the truth" gambit, or run screaming back into the arms Gordon, Mandy and Alistair?

One thing that could help decide that is what David Cameron has to say in his closing speech in Manchester. There has to be some sunshine as well as gloom from the Tories and what we may have seen yesterday is just the 'bad' part of a 'good cop, bad cop' routine with Cameron due to provide the balance. For Cameron’s sake, one would hope so.

The other issue is whether voters believe that Osborne is the right man to get us through the financial storm. He looks a little older and wiser than when we last saw him at conference, but it was interesting to see yesterday that he was never let out for a wander without Ken Clarke close to his side. "Aha, it's all right," we were meant to think. "Of course, Ken's still around to hold his hand."

But if floating voters find Osborne too scary, if Cameron has nothing up his sleeve but more threats of doom and gloom, and if the polls later this month show the Tory lead over Labour slipping to a single figure, then this election could get very interesting.

The Mole will also be looking forward to seeing what David Blanchflower makes of Osborne’s performance yesterday. The former member of Mervyn King's Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England has been having a field day with Osborne in his column in the New Statesman.

Writing at the end of September about the uncertain financial future faced by a 'Lost Generation' of workers in their twenties, Blanchflower warned the wannabe chancellor: "Mr Osborne, I really don't know which economists are advising you on this brilliant strategy to increase unemployment, but feel free to give me a call. Unemployment makes voters unhappy."

This month, he went further, claiming Osborne had "little or no experience in economics", and that the measures that he and Cameron had put forward on quantitative easing and public spending cuts would cause huge damage to the economy.

Returning to the subject of youth unemployment, he wrote: "Young unemployed people tend to commit crime, so it is likely that property and street crime, in particular, will go up. Where exactly are the new jobs going to come from under your great new strategy, Mr Osborne? Not in financial services, construction or the public sector, for sure. I have an idea - how about security guards? Unemployment will explode under your 'lack of a plan for jobs', Mr Osborne!"

Blanchflower, who commutes between New Hampshire and Stirlingshire - he is professor of economics at both Dartmouth College and Stirling University - went on to predict mass upheaval in the public sector. "Unionisation rates are a lot higher in the public sector than in the private sector... Strikes in the public sector are a certainty, if you cut [public services] hard. How will you conduct government when large parts of the civil service are on strike?"

And that was before Osborne mentioned the little matter of a one-year pay freeze.