The Reuters news agency quoted Bank of England chief Mervyn King last night as having said that the winner of the next general election would ensure that Party being “out of power for a whole generation because of how tough the fiscal austerity will have to be”. Quite a few people have been telling me over the last year that this is the Election ‘nobody wants to win’, but if they’ve done nothing else, the TV debates have scotched that idea: blind ambition sees every situation as an opportunity, and those three blokes vying for votes don’t look to me like they’d prefer a spell in Opposition.

King is only repeating calculations made by the Institute of Fiscal studies three months ago. All the senior members of all the Parties will be aware of these and other Dayglo-warnings emanating from most objective sources since the banking bailout. Tonight’s debate gives just one man -David Cameron – the chance to poke the other two with some maths about what will have to be done. It was his (and Steve Hilton’s) daft idea four weeks ago to Not Mention the Deficit – a catastrophic tactical error that lies behind the Top Tory Toff Tiff the Slog’s been pointing out for some time. Now it’s Dave’s chance to redeem himself with some very simple numbers.

Will he do it? I very much doubt it. It’s become clear to me recently that Cameron is innately unable to go for risky clarity over safe balm. As the other two contenders are vulnerable on this very issue of deficit denial, had Dave gone for the jugular on LabLib largesse, I doubt if Clegg would’ve been able to surge quite so effortlessly.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t alter the fact an opportunity to break out in front is staring the Tory leader in the face. The reason it would work on telly is that, while Brown will just tell porkies and Clegg will repeat his magnificently empty “there’s no point in getting into a numbers game”, Cameron can use big numbers with clear and memorable labels.

The key soundbite would have to be Labour has made a bad situation worse through dogma and waste…here are some immediate open and honest cuts:

Today’s ONS analysis of prescription costs, for example, shows £9billion being spent on flat-rate and free prescriptions. Some £3 billion of those are OTC medicines many people could buy for themselves. A further £1.5 billion go on free prescriptions for over 60s – almost 45% of whom (including me) have more than enough money to buy the stuff themselves.

Further, new welfare entitlements brought in by Labour since 1997, including free bus passes for everyone over 60, baby bonds, and education allowances to encourage 16-year-olds from low-income families to stay on at school, cost more than £8bn a year. Means testing and improved targeting would save in the region of £3.4billion from this morass of often unnecessary benefits. A rethink on why those kids should stay at school – or learn a trade – could save a further £0.5billion.

The winter fuel allowance was paid out to some 64,000 expats last year. The total cost of the scheme was £2.7 billion; so again, the 48% rule applies – £1.3billion of further savings.

The Civil Service hired 9000 new employees last year at a cost of £0.5billion in salaries, recruitment costs and pension entitlements. A freeze on new hires – all saved.

While our frontline soldiers go badly equipped, a nuclear defence cost from the days when Britain was actually worth targeting means to renew Trident will cost around £25 billion. Let’s not do it. That won’t leave us without defence (our knowledge of portable nuclear delivery alone means nobody would ever dare attack us with missiles any more) but it will save all that money already budgeted for the coming years. By 2014, the renewal will have cost a further £1 billion to run.

Take out £25.25 billion, save £15billion of it, apply the remaining £10.25 billion to re-equipping our field forces and navy.

All up, these savings produce an equally memorable potential soundbite:£25 billion of savings without a single deserving cause, soldier or sick patient suffering in any way. Adding, perhaps, “You know we’re going to have to do it, the voters know we’re going to have to do it – at least we’ve thought about doing it with minimal pain. What are you going to do?”

Watching the other two bluster and squirm in the face of this will make for good television, if nothing else.