Every day, sometimes on several occasions, an e-mail arrives in my inbox on behalf of George Osborne, the Conservative shadow chancellor.

Issued in response to a minor economic indicator or flaky forecast, these missives, apart from rather demeaning the office of shadow chancellor, are usually harmless enough and can be safely ignored.

Last week, however, came one that summed up the Tory problem: opposition by soundbite. For weeks, a debate has raged about whether central banks should engage in “quantitative easing”, the technique employed by the Japanese authorities in 2001-6 to lift their economy out of stagnation and deflation.

The US Federal Reserve, cutting its Fed Funds rate to a 0%-0.25% range last month, signalled that it would formalise quantitative easing. Once you are at zero, you need other measures. Quantitative easing is often described as “printing money”, though it is not. More on this in a moment.

When, in an interview, Alistair Darling, the chancellor, confirmed that the Treasury and Bank of England were considering quantitative easing, as widely reported in recent weeks, Osborne was on the case.

“The very fact that the Treasury is speculating about printing money shows that Gordon Brown has led Britain to the brink of bankruptcy,” he railed. “Printing money is the last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed. It can’t be ruled out as a last resort in the fight against deflation, but in the end printing money risks losing control of inflation and all the economic problems that high inflation brings.”

This was a silly soundbite. Apart from Fed chief Ben Bernanke, the case for quantitative easing is being pushed by most economists who think the money supply matters, which should be the Tory position.

It is favoured, for example, by the shadow monetary policy committee, which meets under the auspices of the Institute of Economic Affairs, the favourite think tank of Margaret Thatcher and her former economic adviser, the late Sir Alan Walters.

Osborne and his leader, David Cameron, have had a bad crisis. Baited by Brown as the “do nothing” party, they have been provoked into small, largely irrelevant initiatives. Even Brown’s enemies do not hold him entirely responsible for the worst advanced-country downturn since 1945. Cameron and Osborne, overplaying the blame card, invite ridicule and allow Brown to get away with things he should carry the can for, such as over-spending in the good times.

A Tory shadow chancellor should be well regarded by the City. Instead, Alistair Darling is winning grudging approval. Oppositions need to make the intellectual case. The Tories, guided by Sir Geoffrey Howe, did so brilliantly during the 1974-79 crisis-hit Labour government. So far this Conservative opposition hasn’t.

I write this with regret. We need a credible, constructive opposition to give people confidence that, come a change of government, the economy will be in safe hands.

Ken Clarke, ranked by readers as best chancellor over 30 years, has been a wasted asset for the Tories since May 1997. John Redwood, a former cabinet minister, appears to understand the crisis and was impressive on the radio the other day.

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