David Cameron, Sorry for the state of the economy (and he means it).

David Cameron will apologise for getting it wrong on the economy when addresses the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce later tonight. David told the BBC:

"I am sorry we have got some things wrong. "We were right to call time on government debt but should we have said more about banking debt, corporate debt?Yes we should have done."

He said: Saying sorry was the "easy bit", Mr Cameron said, adding that it was more "difficult" for politicians to say where they had gone wrong.

"It's that that needs to take place in order to build trust with the public so that we can get this economy out of recession and into recovery,"

David will say:

I believe we were right, as we did back in 2006, to warn about rising levels of personal debt. And I believe we were right, as we did at the last election and through to today, to consistently warn about the scale of the Government debt crisis. But do I believe we did enough to warn about the rising levels of corporate debt, banking debt and borrowing from abroad? No. And there are other areas of economic policy where I look back now and think we would have done it differently if we had the time again. For example, while we warned that it was wrong and complacent to claim that boom and bust had been abolished… we based our plans on the hope that economic growth would continue.

All parties signed up to this cosy economic consensus, including the Liberal Democrats, whose spending plans have tended to be the largest of them all. It is only by being honest about the past that we can get things right for the future. So we need to recognise that our economy, as well as our society, is broken - and we should have said so sooner. But if we’re honest, we must also recognise that some of our economic difficulties today relate not only to what has happened in the last ten years, but also to certain fundamental weaknesses that have been there for decades.

In recent years these fundamental British economic weaknesses have actually been getting worse rather than better, but they have been masked by easy money and economic growth. It's only when the tide of debt-fuelled growth recedes that the rocks underneath are revealed. Well the tide is out now, and the rocks all too visible. We as a country can’t get away with it any more.

I think this is a very smart move from David and his team (yes team). Gordon Brown has been well and truly wrong footed. After being dogged to apologise for weeks and refusing to do so, he now cannot apologise without looking like he is just copying Cameron. Brown had his chance to say sorry and he's fluffed it. Well done David.

Full speech HERE.