Don't worry about declining living standards because Boris Johnson is going to save statues of slave traders.
Forget record high NHS waiting lists and crumbling schools when Tory Cabinet Ministers lie in front of giant Union Jacks to illustrate their intense patriotism.
And ignore sleaze, corruption, back-handers, unfairness, inequality and fatal mistakes for, with the blessing of Culture Wars Secretary Nadine Dorries, Tory no-mark Andrew Rosindell wants the BBC to play God Save the Queen every day.
Statues, flags and anthems are battlegrounds the PM’s smokescreen to divert public attention away from his tax hikes, soaring fuel bills, cost of living rises, stagnant wages and declining public services.
It is a classic, cynical Right-wing strategy to divide and rule.
It played well in the past and it might work again.
Magicians use misdirection as a form of deception to draw the audience’s attention from the real action.
Johnson would rather voters were angry about a jury clearing four protesters over the toppling of slaver Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol than holding the PM to account for increased National Insurance or discussing Labour’s proposed windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas producers to compensate households who are facing huge increases in energy bills.
Suella Braverman is an Attorney-General whose ideological conviction results in much of the legal profession judging her guilty of stupidity.
Even considering an appeal against the jury verdict in the Colston case is a sign the governing party will roll in the gutter.
Labour leader Keir Starmer is wise to take no lectures on patriotism from a Conservative regime which inflicted the terrible national self-harm that is Brexit.
But in a fight, the Labour leader is similarly wise to combat smears which saw predecessor Jeremy Corbyn unfairly tainted as hating his country.
Labour wins by keeping the national conversation on big issues that really count, the Tories by changing it to emblems and frippery.
Living standards or statues?
The election’s choice and verdict will decide whether Britain is a progressive country moving brightly forward or stuck in the past.
