TAKE PARTY POLICIES WITH A PINCH OF SALT AND LOOK HARD AT CORE VALUES

Published in North Devon Journal on Thu 7th Jan 2010

The election is still four months away but the New Year has seen all parties scrambling to make new policy announcements. Spin and counter-spin follow swiftly in their wake. The public is going to find it all very exhausting.

The Conservatives, rather unfeasibly, tried to outflank Labour as guardians of the NHS, promising to spend more on public health in deprived areas than in middle-class places.

There is an element of fantasy politics here. The reality is that whatever Government is elected will cut both, though possibly to differing extents.

There will be enormous shortfalls in NHS funding over the next few years. Don't believe anyone promising extra spending without any details of how they will cuts frontline services elsewhere. Even then keep a healthy suspicion.

And if they plan to remove all central targets how will they prevent a return to the waiting lists of old?

Meanwhile the Labour Government promises more help to struggling primary school pupils. This is a re-heated announcement from six months ago. Labour has had 13 years to fix the schools system.

If they haven't put the right policies in place by now, they won't succeed just a few months before Election Day. The best policy for education at this point would be freedom from endless Government meddling.

Tax is the other big battle ground. Conservatives say they will stick with their proposed inheritance tax cut, so that a handful of people can leave £2 million homes without any tax being paid. But their plan to pay for this policy by taxing foreign "non-doms" cheerfully overlooks the fact that the Treasury has already done this, so no new money would be raised.

Tax breaks for married couples have been another flashpoint this week. The Conservatives when last in office began removing them, but now say they want to bring them back. This would mean everyone else having to pay for them. Having alleged a £34 billion hole in Conservative plans, Labour licked their lips as Mr Cameron squirmed on this one.

But as proof of how tough the going will be for any new government, the Chancellor has indicated that Labour would keep the new higher 50p tax rate in place for the whole of the next Parliament.

Detailed policies from all parties may have to be taken with a pinch of salt. The real battleground will be about core values: where the different parties will make cuts and what they will defend to the hilt.

My priority will not be tax cuts for a handful of millionaire property owners, but rather a fair tax system to defend the pockets of ordinary people.