DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Green shoots for the Tories?
Wallowing in the mid-term doldrums, bickering over Europe, lacking any sense of vision or direction… by all the normal rules of politics, this should be a time of deep unpopularity for the Tories.
Yet remarkably, a poll this week shows the party up two points – lagging only three behind Labour, which has slumped from 38 to 34 per cent.
Even Nigel Farage’s UKIP is down two, yielding ground to the Conservatives, when it seemed on an unstoppable roll.
The most obvious reason for the main ruling party’s buoyancy, of course, is that Ed Miliband is a walking, burbling disaster as leader of the Opposition.
On the economy, he has nothing to offer but more of the poison that brought this country to the brink of economic death – prescribed by the same doctor, Ed Balls.
On Europe, he can’t capitalise on Tory tensions over an in/out referendum, since every posture he strikes exposes his reluctance to give the public their say.
Even among Labour’s core voters, Mr Miliband is seen as an uninspiring puppet of his party’s militant union paymasters.
Yet might there not be another explanation for the Tories’ resilience?
Whisper it softly, but after its protracted and agonising illness, is it possible that the economy is at last on the mend?
Certainly, many of the indicators are looking healthier than they have for a long while.
On exports, encouraging new figures show sales to the world’s fastest-growing economies soaring – more than making up for the downturn in our trade with the crippled eurozone.
More... SIMON HEFFER: A serious contender? The grey man who could be David Cameron's nemesis Cameron bid to unite party behind EU referendum bill by ordering three-line whip Ed Miliband surges up power list of influential Jewish people despite struggling to convince voters of his leadership credentialsLast month alone, exports to the US rocketed by an extraordinary 21 per cent, while sales abroad of British-built cars raked in £21billion in 2012.
Meanwhile last month’s figures show a marked improvement in manufacturing, which was holding the economy back.
Or take the housing market. In a reliable sign of recovering strength, mortgage approvals have risen sharply and prices are edging up.
On employment, too, the picture remains sanguine, with 470,000 private sector jobs created last year – to the bafflement of Left-wingers, who predicted that cuts would cause mass unemployment across the whole economy.
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And to put the cherry atop the week’s cake, the FTSE-100 closed above 6,700 yesterday for the first time since 2007.
Of course, only a wide-eyed Pollyanna would say all our troubles are behind us.
Indeed, with the Government’s debts still rising fast, it emerges that ministers have agreed only £2.5billion of £11.5billion cuts George Osborne has demanded to keep his strategy on track.
Meanwhile Martin Weale, of the Bank of England’s rate-setting committee, yesterday dashed hopes of more monetary stimulus for the economy, warning that any further loosening of the purse strings would risk entrenching inflation.
So, yes, there are very tough times ahead. But don’t write the Tories off yet.
New boss, same biasFirst, the new BBC director general makes New Labourite James Purnell his strategy director. Now, with the appointment of Guardian veteran Ian Katz to edit Newsnight, Tony Hall adds another Left-winger to his stable.With a political editor who was also at the Guardian, and an ex-Trotskyist as economics editor, Mr Katz will be among soulmates on the programme.One question: how can ‘new broom’ Lord Hall claim, with a straight face, that the BBC is politically unbiased?
