Sunak and Starmer's lives would be a whole lot easier if their parties focused on the three Ps, says Nigel Nelson

Voters only look at leaders when the three Ps leave them frustrated
Political leaders only face scrutiny when voters are angry about the three Ps
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Ask local councillors what their voters get hot under the collar about and they will tell you its the three Ps – planning, parking and potholes.
It is only when council tax payers clock that political parties are offering little to deal with whichever of the Ps currently peeing them off that they begin to look at the national political picture and the nation’s political leaders. Which is why Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are nervously eyeing May 5th when the results of this year’s local elections will be known.
The Tories have most to lose with 3,370 of their seats up for grabs to Labour’s 2,144. Nearly every metropolitan, unitary and district authority faces votes for some seats next month and 146 for all.
The outcome will give Sunak and Starmer a key indication of whether the polls are right about Labour’s 18 point lead and which one of them voters think should occupy No10 at the fag end of next year.
Yet they are so much alike – cautious, risk averse and not very exciting. It’s like choosing between a pair of bank managers. But on the plus side at least they’re not Boris…
That’s not to say we shouldn’t welcome a bank manager as PM after the turbulence of the last 12 months, especially at a time when money is tight. But without a firm political philosophy to build on, their tenure in Downing Street is likely to be short.
It was because Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair both had those foundations they were able to win three terms in office.
Thatcher’s unshakeable belief in the free market led to lasting change in the fabric of Britain, and to her mind the freer the free market the better. Public services and utilities are still in private hands thanks to her, and the comfortably off continue to enjoy a 40 per cent upper tax rate instead of the 60 per cent she inherited.
Blair’s Third Way political philosophy was straight out of the Bill Clinton playbook, cherry picking from right and left to nobble the best of free market capitalism and social democracy. And that’s why he won so many elections, the last even after he had invaded Iraq.
Before Blair came along we need to imagine British politics as a straight line. Towards the left of it Labour scored on issues such as health, education and social welfare. Towards the right the Tories were strong on stuff like defence, law and order, and economic management. Winning an election was about finding the bit on the line where most voters sat.
Blair upended that by hovering above the line – triangulation, as it was called – snaffling policies from both ends.
The perfect example was his slogan “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.” The first part of that phrase is very Tory, the second very Labour. Hook them together and it’s a winning combination.
David Cameron would never have become Tory leader had Blair not laid the groundwork for him. He, too, had a political philosophy which started out as Compassionate Conservatism and morphed into the Big Society, the idea that by looking after others we also look after ourselves. His failure was an inability to articulate in the way Blair had. His attempts at explanation at Conservative Party conferences succeeded only in sending delegates to sleep.
Philosophies aside, there are not that many differences between the left and right. Both want to create national wealth so that Britain may prosper. The Tory way is to look after the wealth creators so their wealth will trickle down to all in the form of jobs. It’s a sound economic model if it works, but it doesn’t if the wealth creators keep the wealth for themselves.
So a few figures. Forty years ago company chief execs pocketed 20 times the earnings of the average worker. Twenty years ago that had risen to 50 times. According to the High Pay Centre which monitors these things, in 2020 that had gone up to 79 times. Now it stands at 109 times
Worth keeping in the back of your mind if you're toddling off to vote on May 4th – that’s if you’re not up to your eyes with a planning application, can find a place to park near the polling station, and haven’t had your axle poleaxed by a pothole on the way there.