There’s only a very muted and limited reference to possibly, perhaps, one day breaking up banks in the 2010 general election Conservative Party manifesto.

Then in yesterday’s third TV debate David Cameron bigged up the importance he gives to breaking up the banks. And then … in today’s Contract from the Conservative Party there’s no mention of doing anything to the banks.

So who’s off message? Cameron? The manifesto? The contract?

It’s this sort of inconsistency that seems to have bedevilled the Conservative campaign. To take another example – the “Big Society” was meant to be the Conservative Party’s big idea, but only got mentioned by Cameron 12 minutes from the end of last night’s debate.

If nothing else, this all will certainly make the post-election reports as to quite what has been going on in the Conservative campaign an interesting read.