Cameron 'to be good housekeeper'

The Tory leader is to deliver his clearest commitment yet to easing the burden on taxpayers if elected, alongside cracking down on the welfare state and slashing bureaucracy.

But he will also deliver a stark warning that thanks to a "reckless" decade under Labour, there are tough financial times ahead.

Setting out his party's public spending strategy to an audience in Birmingham, Mr Cameron will say: "We need to start living within our means because in the decades ahead there will be pressure to spend more on the essentials - whether that's care for the older generation, equipment for our armed forces, or more prisons and police to keep us safe.

"At the same time, we have reached the limits of acceptable taxation and borrowing. With the rising cost of living, taxpayers can't take any more pain and the economy can't take any more pain without losing jobs to lower tax competitors."

Flanked by shadow chancellor George Osborne, Mr Cameron will call for public spending to be reduced as a proportion of national income over time, in order to "create the space for cutting tax".

This would be achieved by being "careful, not casual" with money and "attacking" the three causes of a bigger state and rising public spending.

"First, the cost of social failure," Mr Cameron will say. "Family breakdown, unemployment, drug and alcohol addiction - these social problems rack up the biggest bills for government, so we've got to get them down.

"Second, the cost of unreformed public services. Massive top-down state monopolies cost more and deliver less, so we need to improve the running of public services through more choice, competition and non-state collective provision.

"Third, the cost of bureaucracy itself. All bureaucracies have an inbuilt tendency to grow, so we need to call a halt to the wasteful spending and inefficiency we've seen under Labour."