Steve Richards (David Cameron will lose the battle of ideas if he keeps firing 1979’s bullets) is right to say in The Guardian (and Ed Miliband obviously agrees with him) that next year’s election will not, and should not, be decided by personality politics.  So what is it that will determine the voters’ preferences?

It would be nice to think, as Richards argues, that the election will be about ideas.  But policy ideas, until and unless they are successfully proved in practice, make little impact on voters increasingly cynical about promises. Continue reading →