What a valuable defence advisers have proven to be.
Decision time
This is my last missive before the election next week, and the polls remain deadlocked. I’ve already put on the record my prediction for the outcome and I see no reason to deviate from what I said three weeks’ ago.
Fears over the economy will push enough marginals to the Tories to enable them to continue in coalition as long as the Lib Dems - which received a tactical endorsement from our own parent paper’s leader today - hold enough seats themselves.
I did, however, refuse to give my own party preference amid all of my previous crystal ball gazing. I’ve found this election the hardest in my young voting life and am still ‘undecided’ even now.
As Ed Miliband revealed last night, Labour still doesn’t understand what went wrong with the country’s finances.
Ignore all the scaremongering and spurious claims over economic mismanagement, it’s all about spending. The simple fact is that government spending rose from £322bn in 1997 to £692bn in 2010. This left us horribly exposed to a reversal in economic fortune.
In the nine years of boom from 2001/2002 Britain ran a budget deficit each year, which spiked from a modest £7bn in 2007/2008 to £110bn by 2009/2010, propelled in part by bank bailouts. It’s still at around £90bn.
Mind you, the Tories have broken ranks and are showering the electorate with promises on spending and tax cuts that don’t add up - and themselves show a blatant disregard for the effect the rapidly rising pension bill, which they’ll continue to accelerate above inflation, is having elsewhere.
All three parties are guilty of pandering to this comparatively rich but high-turnout demographic, with its 55 per cent share of the welfare bill set to continue to rise at the expense of younger people and the working age poor.
The Greens are laudable but their plans broadly fanciful - and don’t even talk to me about Ukip. So where does that leave us?
Well, it leaves me thinking that I’m happy no one party will win and joining those wishing Lib Dem incumbents well in the hope they will hold the balance of power again.
ashley.wassall@ft.com
