Twitter for Jackie Ashley: In a crisis calling for big ideas, Osborne is woefully lacking

Hang on a minute. Could somebody please have a word with whoever's in charge? They've got the story wrong again. It's the Labour party that is supposed to be fighting like furious ferrets in a bag and the Tories who hang together. Suddenly, as the extraordinary politics of the economic crash unfold, it seems the other way around. Tory front-benchers are bitching. Tory fundraisers are in revolt. And Tory activists are spitting with hostility at one of their own.

I don't turn on the telly or open the papers to watch Labour people being grownup and sensible about each other. I don't expect the Conservatives to sound panicky and lost, particularly when the country is hurting so badly. Even the polls show the gap between Labour and the Conservatives is closing. You would almost have thought the grumpy Scot was in with a chance.

Welcome to the world of George Osborne. This is a story of hubris, though it's too soon to say Nemesis is walking up the path. The fact that Osborne and Peter Mandelson were first guests together on that wretched yacht, and then so publicly fought over what was said, was very neat. For though they are different characters in many ways, Osborne has been a Mandelson figure for the New Tories. He is not much liked by the public, seen as aloof, sarcastic and elitist, but has had an awesome reputation in the political world as a strategic genius, a boy wonder of the black arts. Osborne and Mandy? Apprentice and Sorcerer, surely.

His reputation rested, above all, on his tax package coup of rather more than a year ago that resulted in a big poll rise for the Tories and stopped Gordon Brown calling an early general election. All now seems a world away. Osborne's status as "the cleverest Tory" was buttressed by his closeness to his old friend David Cameron. Here, it seemed, was the ruthless and tough side of the partnership, the man Labour most feared. Yes, he was a bit of a toff and not much good in broadcasting studios, but he was dangerous too.

What a difference this autumn has made. First came his kebab and retsina moment. That has merely confirmed the impression of a still-naive, rather childish figure who likes to hobnob with the rich. The infamous Bullingdon Club stories of his ritual humiliation, which sounded more like Tom Brown's Schooldays than secondary education in modern Britain, and that awful photo of him smirking on a day out shooting, were then rehashed to compound the image.

But why was "Yachtgate" in the papers in the first place? Only because Osborne had leaked what Mandelson had allegedly said, gleefully trying to cause embarrassment; and was then in turn kebabbed by Nat Rothschild and Mandelson. He let loose a media attack-dog that came back to bite him. Had he not tried to be too clever by half, none of this would have happened; thus, in a trice, the plotter became the plonker.

Politics is always a rough trade, and almost everyone has their embarrassing moments. But it has become increasingly apparent that though Osborne, and by extension Cameron, are good enough at anti-Brown soundbites and can cobble together small-scale attacks, they have not been able to articulate a simple and compelling analysis of the crisis. The best they can come up with is that it's all Brown's fault for spending so much money in the past decade, spending that at the time the Tories mostly supported.

This is so woefully inadequate that many natural Tories in the City and in business are shaking their heads with despair and frustration. What about why toxic debt spread so fast? What do Cameron and Osborne think about a new global financial architecture? What would they do confronted by another bank collapse? If everybody else is pumping money into their economies to prevent a wider collapse, would a Tory Britain really stand to one side? Right or wrong, at least Brown and Darling seem to have some sense of the scale of the crisis and are struggling to match it with big ideas.

It's obvious that the Tories have a special problem, which is the nightmare of winning the next election only to have to raise taxes and/or interest rates to cope with debt and inflation. They clearly fear that Brown no longer cares what he spends, since he's focused on the short term. That is a fair point, but for now, the short term is what matters. People are scared about their jobs, savings and future right now. The problems of 2010 are further away.

This is why they seem tongue-tied. Is it not deeply weird that the only applause Cameron has won recently is for his angry attack over the issue of Baby P? I am sure his anger was sincere, though using the story in a partisan way left a nasty taste in the mouth. But in the middle of a financial crisis, here is Cameron, a former aide to a chancellor leading a party based in the City - and he finds it hard to be heard on the main issue of the day.

This has to be partly Osborne's fault, because he is in charge of economic policy. He is left promising tax cuts, but not large or real tax cuts, because they will be matched by rises elsewhere. He is committed to matching Labour spending on the big budgets but has no list of where he would save money. Now panicky Tories seem to be turning to Oliver Letwin to help on that one, though he hardly has a great track record. It was Letwin who, as shadow chancellor, had to go into hiding during the 2001 election campaign after rashly promising spending cuts of £20bn a year.

All Osborne does is say the past has been terrible, while offering little hope for the future. People in the City complain he will not listen to them, that he is too arrogant and shuns their advice. In parliament, other Tories resent him because of his closeness to Cameron. There's a perception of a smug little cabal. Hence the bitching and the leaking and the sense that the Nasty Party is back.

The Cameron and Osborne response seems to be: just wait, and the scale of the recession will bite, and everyone will turn against Brown again, and the Tory recovery will resume. Well, that is possible. But it is now also possible that Labour will be able to snatch a shock victory at some point next year, based on the single idea of "we're fixing this".

Osborne has, no doubt, many faults. He has made silly mistakes. But he is the whipping boy for a much wider failure of philosophy and politics. In a leader-dominated party that is the fault of one man. It is time to turn the spotlight not on George, but on George's best friend.

jackie.ashley@guardian.co.uk