Does Boris seriously think he can frighten voters with warnings about Labour’s £1.2trillion spending plans?
And does Jeremy really think that topping Boris’s £6billion on health spending will secure a single extra vote?
These are just some of the figures being bandied about in a blitz of claim and counter claim over which party will ensure the country’s economy and its social fabric are in the best hands.
But who is listening?
Politicians must know that the stratospheric scale of their spending promises rockets beyond the comprehension of most voters, not least those struggling to make ends meet by the end of every week.
The figures are as good as meaningless.
As an American senator once said: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.”
So why do they do it? It’s because the real money they are talking about is ours. And because we care how it’s spent, MPs and leaders of all political parties feel the need to underline their commitment to services we care most about with cash pledges.
In this election it’s turned into a bidding war.
After a decade of cuts in vital areas the Tories would have us believe they have discovered a social conscience, with Boris Johnson promising a splurge to repair parts of the social infrastructure that he and his party have spent years destroying.
Of course, the Tories would do it responsibly while Labour would splash out irresponsibly, wrecking the entire economy.
Labour counters that the Tory plans do not go far enough to repair the damage, let alone provide what’s needed for improvement.
So we get the spending boasts. Which really don’t matter because few believe or care about the figures.
We care what the politicians will do in government with our money and in election times the biggest deciding factor is trust. And you can’t put a figure on that.
Police numbers, nurses and doctors, teachers, care workers, youth projects and other council services are all at stake. But the most potent barometer of trust is the NHS.
Anybody who has had anything to do with the service lately knows that, for all that the staff continue to work miracles, the NHS is in crisis.
Downing Street is in a panic, creating an unprecedented No10 NHS “operations unit” to cope.
The doctors’ union, the British Medical Association, says the NHS under the Tories has been in a “perpetual state of crisis” pointedly observing that it “should not take a general election to prompt Government action”.
But it will. So far we’ve had only noisy skirmishes about spending, before either Labour or the Tories had published their manifestos.
The real war over spending figures has barely started. We’ll hear much more in the coming week and beyond till election day.
That’s when voters will deliver their verdict on who they can trust most.
