March 15: Tories go back to the future

It hasn’t happened. On the contrary, the strategy which their Australian campaign chief, Lynton Crosby, appears to have foisted on David Cameron – one of talking up the economy at every opportunity while never missing a chance to denigrate Ed Miliband – has succeeded only in boosting the Labour leader while simultaneously alienating a voting public that is crying out for fresh ideas.

Considering the Tories’ record of achievement in government – including radical welfare and education reforms – the lack of imagination in the Conservative campaign has been as surprising as it has been alarming.

As a result, yesterday’s manifesto launch had the air of a make-or-break moment. It not only had to introduce excitement into a stiflingly dull campaign, it also had to show that the Conservatives stood for far more than merely balancing the books and mocking their opponents.

To achieve this, to demonstrate that the Tories can indeed offer a bright future, they have gone back to the past. The proposal to revive Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy scheme not only gives hundreds of thousands of housing association tenants a good reason to vote Conservative, it also highlights how the basic Tory principle – that power should be devolved from the state to the people – can be used to benefit the people who most need it.

Indeed, the Conservatives are now the party of working people, Mr Cameron declared as he announced plans to take all minimum-wage earners out of income tax and double the number of free hours of childcare for working parents.

It is eye-catching stuff, a genuine – if belated – attempt to broaden the Tories’ support base and a challenge to Mr Miliband which finally amounts to more than the mere hurling of insults.

It has taken a long time but at last this seemingly interminable election campaign may be about to burst into life.

The care crisis

Doctors driven out of the NHS

IF THERE is one thing that has not been in short supply in this election campaign, it is politicians’ professed love for the NHS.

The Conservatives were at it again yesterday with a guarantee that over-75s will have same-day access to a family doctor as part of a “revolution” of GP services.

What the Tories do not explain, in common with every other party, is where, even if the funding is available, these GPs are going to come from.

A new survey by the British Medical Association, however, should enlighten politicians to a reality that cannot be avoided any longer.

Put simply, the supply of family doctors is drying up. Not enough young people are being attracted to the profession, a fifth of trainees are considering leaving the UK to work abroad and a third of GPs are considering retiring from general practice in the next five years.

The poll also reveals the strains and stresses – caused by pressured working conditions, excessive paperwork and a lack of time with patients – that explain why so many GPs want to escape NHS work.

The question, then, is when will politicians wake up to this crisis, stop using the NHS merely as a weapon to wield during elections and stop pretending that all problems can be solved by promises of more funding?

Whichever party wins next month, the crisis in primary care is clearly going to get worse and political leaders should be showing now that they recognise this.

A failure of trust

Yorkshire Bank disgraces itself

ANY NOTION that it is only the bigger banks that have behaved appallingly over recent years is put to flight by the record £21m fine imposed on Yorkshire Bank and its sister bank, Clydesdale, over “serious failings” in the handling of Payment Protection Insurance complaints.

And the news that compensation payments are in order will be cold comfort for customers who have been so badly let down by a bank whose proud name they once believed they could trust.

The worst aspect of this scandal, however, is not that the banks provided false information to the Financial Ombudsman, but that no one has been held to account for it. Considering that Yorkshire Bank was once a byword in the banking business for honesty, accountability and straightforward dealing, it can only be concluded that this is an organisation that has fallen a very long way.