I heard on the BBC today that Immigration and the NHS are currently higher on the list of people's most important issues for the coming election than 'the Economy'.
I'd be horrified by this statistic were I part of the Tory election team - and am pretty horrified as just a humble voter.
Why?
Because whilst we remain in the EU there's effectively nothing any party can do to take any kind of serious national control over immigration - so the campaign will all be about meaningless rhetoric rather than policies that will make any real difference. A smokescreen of an issue that neither of the major parties will be able to address - and neither of them will admit to the simple fact that we cannot control movement of people within the EU. And, by the way, people from outside the EU only have to get to Italy, Spain or other southern European countries in order to effectively be inside the EU and then be able to avail themselves of free movement.
Our borders are now effectively as strong as Italy's - which means that when refugees are rescued from floating death traps in the Med and allowed just to 'melt away' when they get to southern Italian towns, they might as well be in Piccadilly Circus.
And on the NHS it has become clear under successive Governments that just throwing money at it will not solve the problems it faces; but neither side dares to go public with plans for the serious reforms that are required in order to improve outcomes for patients, because it has become just too divisive an issue - has been very effectively 'weaponised'.
So the two biggest issues of this election are essentially ones that cannot be controlled or resolved by ether party and it will, therefore be about spin; claim and counter-claim rather than anything that takes the country forward in any meaningful way.
Of course one could put forward an argument to say that Government does not drive or control the economy either but it does, in my opinion, create the environment in terms of taxes, incentives, infrastructure and national credibility which can have a positive or negative impact on business, investment and economic activity.
And whilst neither party can point to any credible track record on immigration or the NHS, there is certainly a massive differential between Conservative and Labour governments of the past ten years or so (and indeed stretching back to the early 1970s too) on economic performance.
This then ought to be the major issue upon which most voters make their choice on May 7th, but it seems it will not be. Labour must be delighted about this and I have to say that Dave has failed so far to position the economy as 'front and centre' in the coming campaign.
Instead he's becoming mired in the smokescreen of other things and submerged under Labour entirely fatuous 'cost of living crisis' bollocks.
This 'cost of living crisis' issue is not a crisis but it has become the accepted term as Labour has been allowed to set the agenda, just as they did on the so-called 'bedroom tax'. The cost of living is based on a comparison between average earnings and inflation - if your pay is not increasing faster than inflation then you will be worse off. Marginally. Very marginally. But the low cost of living relatively, in recent years with very low mortgage costs and now falling fuel prices means that most people who are in a job will actually feel quite well off.
It's only when you don't have a job that you really experience a 'cost of living crisis' - and that was something that Labour massively increased while the Tories have brought down to the tune of 600,000 new jobs since 2010.
Labour created the cost of living crisis by presiding over a failing economy and delivering massive levels of unemployment. The actual differential between wage rises and inflation is now happily going the other way, negating Labour's argument, but the reality of addressing the cost of living crisis is about creating jobs. Which the Tories are doing.
Dave doesn't seem to be able to get this message across. He needs to soon.
Thanks for reading
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