Can't take the bull out of the Bullingdon boy.

Byline: Kevin Maguire

DAVID Cameron the Bullingdon Boy would woo woo woo on his way to trash the university rooms of fellow young toffs.

The Con-servative leader and his Old Etonian chums, Boris Johnson and George Osborne, enjoyed marauding through genteel Oxford.

An upper-class hooligan in an Edwardian tailcoat, Cameron's portrayed brandishing a squash racquet during a wrecking spree with Johnson in a TV docu-drama tonight.

He's matured a little since and the one-time student dandy says he's "deeply embarrassed" over that infamous photo of his elitist clique posing on the college steps.

I bet champagne-quaffing Cameron's embarrassed. Who wouldn't be ashamed of behaving like that?

But my beef is the Con-servative leader's basic instincts haven't changed since the days he ran with the Brideshead Regurgitated set.

He's stuck in an economic timewarp, woo woo wooing on a rampage through the public and social fabric of Britain.

The relish with which this wannabe Prime Minister anticipates slashing services is chilling.

The Son of Thatcher's mania for cutting would've turned the recession into a depression, the only political leader anywhere on the globe to oppose increased spending.

This week the chief Con's treating the public as fools by posing as the chap to get Britain working.

Spinning a jobs wheeze is pathetic when one of the world's foremost experts, Prof David Blanchflower, predicted unemployment would top five million under Cameron's blinkered Torynomics.

Snatching pensions by raising the retirement age to 66 confirms how out of touch the Cons are.

Forcing others to work an extra year is a badge of macho honour for Cameron's sidekick "Sir" George Osborne.

Boy George will inherit a knighthood and a fortune with daddy's wallpaper business so it won't hurt him.

But it's grotesquely unfair to the middle-aged lady mopping sick in a hospital or the bloke with a bad back on a building site who are already looking forward to a rest.

Labour strategists hoped Gordon Brown talking about cuts would become a trap for the Cons, emboldening Cameron into giving his scythe a heftier swing.

Political talk of spending cuts is only popular when it's theoretical, a broad principle.

It quickly becomes unpopular when it's your job or school or pension.

Labour lacked fight last week in Brighton yet there are tentative signs in Manchester that the Con-servatives are taking fright.

Cameron babbling on TV, confused about the details of his own party's pension grab, added to a private nervousness already lurking behind the public confidence.

SLIPPERY

The election is his to lose and the Tory Party is capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The chief Con is slippery on jobs, Europe and now pensions when he claims to be a straight-talker.

Populus pollster Andrew Cooper reckons the Cons need an 11% lead to be sure of victory and they were ahead 12% in the last survey I saw.

The choice is becoming clearer and the Cons are playing the role of a party representing a privileged few.

Two years ago the party's charity for the rich, donating pounds 200,000 to the 3,000 wealthiest estates in Britain by virtually abolishing inheritance tax, was a game-changer.

That policy's turned into an albatross around Cameron's neck in a recession when he's preaching pain for the rest of us.

The great pensions snatch may prove a game-changer too, but for Labour.

I'm reminded of Neil Kinnock's withering attack on Maggie Thatcher in 1987.

So if Cameron wins next spring I warn you not to be ordinary or jobless or poor or to grow old.

Because the spirit of the Bullingdon Boy burns bright in David Cameron.

CAPTION(S):

HOOLIGAN Actor Jonny Sweet as a young Cam in tonight's TV show