2001 Labour in the first few days of the election campaign has been like a football team defending a 6-0 lead in the away leg of a European tie. With nothing to gain, it has opted to play for a safe, boring 0-0 draw only to be caught napping by an early goal.
Victory still looks inevitable, but the government has been rattled.
If the voters remember anything from the first few days on the hustings, it will be William Hague's pledge to cut the cost of a gallon of petrol by 27 pence. Of course, the 8bn package of tax cuts proposed by the Tories is based on the sort of budget arithmetic that would have the financial services authority on the case were Hague running a company, rather than a political party. But Labour was still unnerved enough to leak details of its own tax plans, which repeat the 1997 promise not raise either the top or the basic rate of income tax. All this is highly significant. While Labour may be well on the way to rehabilitating the idea of higher public spending, it continues to fight shy of a debate with the opposition on the question of tax.