ARE you wondering where it all started to go wrong for David Cameron and the sinking British economy? My suggestion is as far back as exactly two years ago today.

It was muggy on the morning of May 24, 2010, as I headed to the Treasury for the thenextraordinary sight of Conservative and Liberal Democrat ministers standing side-byside, announcing a key policy.

George Osborne and David Laws, his Lib Dem deputy – soon to quit in an expenses scandal – revealed £6.2bn of immediate spending cuts, designed to send a “shockwave” through the Government. Among the projects biting the dust were child trust funds (£320m), the Future Jobs Fund (£320m), transport grants to local councils (£309m) and 10,000 university places (£200m). Just weeks earlier, on the election trail, the Conservatives had vowed there would be no immediate cuts and the Lib Dems had warned against cutting the legs off the fragile recovery.

But, at that landmark press conference, the Chancellor now insisted the cuts were essential to “bring confidence back to the economy”

and to secure a “private-sector recovery”.

Now, I am not, of course, suggesting those May 24 cuts – a mere drop in the ocean alongside the £80bn axe wielded the following autumn – were the cause of the “double dip” recession, or that I am against the need for some cuts.

But, looking back, the apocalyptic language used that day made it all-but impossible for the new Coalition to turn back from the reckless path it had chosen – an excessively deflationary path leading directly to our current economic plight. We were told the terrifying Eurozone debt crisis made the cuts inevitable and that – miraculously – they would persuade businesses to invest and create those missing jobs.

Two years on, it was all a mirage, of course.

Instead, the economic growth the Coalition inherited was stamped out while a stubborn prime minister and Chancellor refuse to lose face by reaching for a Plan B.

Don’t, for a moment, believe the Eurozone emergency provides a get-out – exports to the EU are the only ones that are up – or that noone warned of the huge mistake being made.

Many did.

Back in May 2012, the botched Budget and the slide back into recession have wiped out Mr Cameron’s positive poll ratings and his government’s reputation for economic competence.

Others – ridiculously – wish to put his woes down to so-called “chillaxing”, the distraction of “date nights” with wife Sam and being hooked on playing Fruit Ninja on his iPad. The Coalition took a fatal wrong turn as long ago as May 24, 2010 – when it was just two weeks old.

ANOTHER Prime Minister’s questions, another gratuitous insult from Mr Cameron - who was ticked off for calling Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls a “muttering idiot”. Week-after-week, aides plead with the Prime Minister to keep his cool, but he allegedly whispered to his Chancellor: “I can’t help it.”

Afterwards, ex-Chancellor Norman Lamont, who employed the youthful Mr Cameron as an adviser during ‘Black Wednesday’, in 1992, agreed he was “quite volatile”. That set me wondering just what he threw around as Britain crashed out of the ERM – because mobile phones were very big, in those days.