Election campaigns are not conversations. Political parties may crank up their instant rebuttal units for those few weeks but they are not debating with each other in any real sense. This is often because they want to talk about different things.
All else being equal, the Tories choose to focus on the economy because that is historically perceived as their strength. Meanwhile, Labour usually goes on public services, where they tend to enjoy a solid polling advantage.
This can lead to slightly strange outcomes. 2017 was supposed to be a Brexit election, but it turned into a public services one. This helped Labour to deny Theresa May an overall majority. But when the party tried the trick again in 2019, they ran into an actual Brexit election, and got whomped.
The next election may prove unusual in a different way, with both Labour and the Conservatives focussing their campaigns on the same issue: the economy. Does that mean one of them has got their sums wrong?
Labour's principal charge is that under this government, living standards have fallen. Indeed, the Resolution Foundation notes that "British households will, for the first time on record, be poorer at the end of a parliament than at its start." Also, Liz Truss. The Tories for their part will point to falling inflation and (they hope) cuts to interest rates. Also, tax cuts.
To that end, the Autumn Statement saw a reduction in the main rate of National Insurance paid by employees from 12 per cent to 10 per cent. Should there be even the slightest sniff of fiscal headroom at the Spring Budget, prepare for more of the same, most likely to income tax. And don't expect Labour to oppose it, either.
The Conservatives hope that tax cuts can be their route to victory in the autumn. Helpfully, they are also one of the few policies that still unite a fractious party. The problem is that, according to a YouGov poll for The Times, 62 per cent of voters – including a majority of Tory supporters – would like to see the government spend more money on public services, even if that means not cutting taxes.
On the one hand, sometimes voters lie. On the other, have you interacted with the British state recently? For all our obsession with house prices and the extraordinary things Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall continues to say, the public realm is in something of a crisis.
New data from NHS England shows that waiting lists were 7.6 million at the end of November. Meanwhile, school buildings are crumbling, prisons are at breaking point and local authorities are on the brink of bankruptcy.
The real problem for the Conservatives as the next election approaches is that they essentially don't lead on any issues. On the big three (the cost of living, the NHS and immigration), Labour enjoys a clear advantage when voters are asked which party has the best policies. The only subject on which the Tories lead is defence which, unless something dramatic takes place in the next 12 months, will not decide the election.In the comment pages, a new 'Lawson boom'? No thanks, I remember the first one, recoils Jonathan Prynn. Melanie McDonagh says the latest violent antisemitic attack in London beggars belief and asks, where were the police? While Paul Flynn calls the demise of online music publication Pitchfork a disaster for music fans everywhere.
And finally, why is everyone in London drinking out of a Stanley cup like a giant baby? Maddy Mussen takes a big gulp and dives into the craze.
