It occurs to me that skill at fighting elections, and winning them, are the reason Gordon Brown is the current Prime Minister – at least indirectly, anyway. Brown is (or was) regarded as a master at the art of campaigning and strategy, thriving on the battle with his opponents. He finds policy positions which serve a dual purpose – the first is demonstrating his ‘values’ and his ‘moral compass’, and the second is defining his opponents by their their opposition to it.

He rails against any opponent brave enough to speak in defence of civil liberties, whether it’s keeping the DNA of innocent people on the database, or scrapping ID cards, arguing against the increasing panopticanisation of public space or, most controversially, not wanting to lock people away without being charged – or even told what it is they’re supposed to have done – for nearly three months. The people against him, Brown argues, are Soft On Terror and Soft On Crime while he alone is willing to take the ‘difficult decisions’ to protect the country. It’s all too easy.

Then there’s the ‘investment versus cuts’ wedge. Since 1997, if you take inflation into account, the size of the Government budget has increased by 54%, over half as much again. It’s now £705 billion. It’s not taking £705 billion in tax though. There’s a shortfall of £174 billion. To put that in perspective let’s do some more maths: In 1997 that £174bn would have been worth £124bn. The entire Government budget in 1997 was £330 billion.

So hang on, let’s get this straight…. the Government is overspending NOW to the tune of 37% of the entire budget in 1997? Wow. The debt interest alone is costing us £43 billion this year – that’s enough money to pay for 4 million full time private sector jobs (“Or maybe up to 50,000 public sector jobs,” she added, sardonically.)

So that’s the situation. How does the campaigning reflect this? Once filtered down to the street it, boils down to simple, “Investment Versus Cuts” – That nasty Mr Cameron will be putting nurses and police officers on the dole, he’ll send us into recession again by ‘taking money out of the economy’ and he’ll no doubt give all primary school children free milk just so he can take it away again.

The point is there’s a simple, obvious truth staring us right in the face. The media’s coverage of the ‘General Election’ is actually coverage of the campaigning. When it comes to governing the ability to campaign or the quality and success of a campaign has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what will happen after the election.

Campaigning, you see, is supposed to be a secondary skill for those who seek to run the country. Yet for Labour and Brown this is really their primary skill, and this is the reason they’ve now won 3 General Elections on the trot… it’s because they’re really, really good at campaigning. Historically the Labour Party has been effective in creating myths and legends about themselves and the Tories, and it’s this dark art that’s been fine tuned and turned into raw, unrestrained, uncompromised power for themselves. What could possibly cause them to abandon prioritising campaigning over governing, when by choosing campaigning they can tell everyone they’ve abandoned spin and get all the same benefits as if they actually had?

Who needs concrete policies and plans when it’s far easier and far more effective, for example, to tell everyone that the Prime Minister is a ‘man of substance’ at every possible opportunity and get a far more immediate and instant result? Doesn’t matter if it’s true – it only matters that people believe it’s true.

If only there was some resource people could use that would, in some way, neutralise the effects of the campaigning, check the facts as reported, analyse the figures and the promises and evaluate each party and their promises in a rational way, forcing politicians to be little more than helpless, silent bystanders while we, the people, go about making our decisions…. nope. Can’t think of anything like that.