Speaking For The Nation

I never cease to be amazed at the arrogance of our leading politicians - regardless of the party they champion and represent.

Take the Labour leader, Ed Miliband - for example..

Now in listening to Ed over recent weeks and months, you could be forgiven for thinking that Ed actually speaks for the country - in his regular denunciations of the Coalition Government.

But you'd be wrong - way off the mark in fact - because the Tories and Lib Dems together  consistently out-perform the Labour opposition in the opinion polls.

Take the latest opinion released yesterday which gives the three main parties the following ratings:

Conservative - 30%
Lib Dems - 12 %
Labour - 41%

Now Labour are ahead of both of their rivals - which is hardly surprising given the state of the economy - and the terrible hand that the Coalition Government has had to play.

I think it's fair to say that no government would be popular at the moment - no matter what it's hue or colour. 

Yet the Tories and the Lib Dems still command 42% support of the popular vote  compared to only 41% for Labour - and that's at the mid-way point in the parliament.

So the real surprise is that Labour is not miles ahead - given all the hugely unpopular decisions that the Coalition Government has had to make - which is probably down to the fact that voters are not daft.

Because the voters know that any government that was in power at the moment - would be making broadly the same decisions as the Tories and the Lib Dems.

In fact it was an outgoing Labour Minister - Liam Byrne, if I remember correctly - who left the following pithy note for his successor (David Laws) to say:

'Dear chief secretary, I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left'.

Which was the  rather blunt, if honest assessment of the economic mess - left behind by the last Labour government.