I believe that the economy is going well, because I see signs of spending all around in shops and bars. But I also see signs of desperate poverty. Labour had better be careful about its promises on fairness and opportunity when all the signs are that it would take swingeing great income taxes on the richest to make any effect at all on the gap between rich and poor. Yesterday's official poverty figures made grim reading. But results take time.
Successful outcome is all that matters to the punter.
There is no such thing anywhere in Lambeth, let alone in my high street. My GP has no appointment free until August 7. Any audience, be it the Tory press or the Women's Institute, can tell at once the difference between honesty and political cant. When Blair penned a dreadful speech to the WI, he got the bird. When, chasing after headlines, he threw out a bit of rubbish penal policy about locking up 4,000 more criminals, it was mocked for transparent opportunism as loudly by the law and order fanatics as by liberals.