Neck and neck race for Number 10 frays nerves

So is it 1992; or are we back in 1974? The polls say nothing has happened in Britain's general election campaign. David Cameron's Conservatives and Ed Miliband's Labour are marching in lockstep towards an inconclusive result on May 7. Either could be prime minister. Neither is in sight of a governing majority. Both are looking for solace in earlier cliff hangers.

Nerves have frayed all round, but the jitters are more obvious in the Conservative camp. Mr Cameron and chancellor George Osborne promised that the government's "long-term economic plan" was a sure path back to power. Lynton Crosby, the party's Australian pollster, predicted that a campaign focused obsessively on the economy and leadership would see the party steadily pull in front. It has not happened yet. The opinion poll dial has remained firmly stuck at 33/34 per cent. Maybe Mr Crosby is not as smart as he thinks.

Labour's slightly cheerier demeanour reflects the fact that Conservative attacks on Mr Miliband's leadership have yet to make a mark. If anything, the Labour leader has seen an improvement in his ratings - albeit from a dangerously low base. But a glance northwards at the march of the Scottish nationalists into Labour's erstwhile strongholds has upturned the party's electoral calculations.

It is hard to see how this week's publication of the various party manifestos will break the deadlock. Sure there will be headline-grabbing announcements. But the campaign has already been saturated with unconvincing and usually uncosted pledges. The voters have grown cynical of such IOUs, and rightly so. No, the election outcome will be decided by deeper instincts and attitudes.

If the polls say anything it is that the voters credit the Conservatives with economic competence but are fed up with austerity and are seriously suspicious of Tory motives, while they like Labour's progressive values and simultaneously doubt its capacity to govern. For now, the once cancels out the other. The Tory reflex is to turn back the clock to John Major's unexpected victory in the 1992 election. Labour can reach further back into history to its defeat of Edward Heath's Conservatives in February 1974.

The parallels with 1992 are well trailed. Mr Crosby may have made his name in Australian politics, but he has taken Mr Major's victory as his template. Then, as now, the Tory pitch was essentially negative - relentless attacks on Labour's tax and spending plans and vilification of its leader Neil Kinnock as a politician unfit to be prime minister. Almost every survey during the campaign showed Labour ahead, but the pollsters' methodology had failed to pick up shy Tory supporters. On the day, the nation's head ruled its heart. Mr Major's manifesto had promised "The Best Future for Britain". Mr Cameron's will carry much the same headline.

Solace for Mr Miliband comes from the first of the two elections of 1974, when Heath went to the country seeking a mandate to finish the job of stabilising the economy. The then Tory prime minister was battling the trade unions, specifically the miners. The title of the 1974 Conservative manifesto could have been written by Mr Osborne: what was needed was "Firm Action for a Fair Britain". Heath asked for "clear authority to run the economy". Mr Cameron has taken the words from his mouth.

Most of the polls put Mr Heath back in Downing Street. And on the day, the Tories did get a fractionally bigger share of the popular vote. But Labour's Harold Wilson picked up more seats and the Liberals were more inclined to back Labour than the Conservatives. Close observers of the recent manoeuvring at Westminster will hear some uncanny echoes.

Much as they had qualms about Labour, the voters had tired of brushing their teeth in the dark as a consequence of Heath's confrontation with the miners. Mr Cameron's great fear must be that today's electorate is equally weary of austerity. If Mr Miliband does make it to Downing Street it will be because of the threat of more swingeing cuts in public spending.

Historical analogies, of course, are necessarily imprecise. In 1974 a much smaller Liberal party was on the rise. Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats are braced for big losses. The unions that brought down Heath were subsequently smashed by Margaret Thatcher. Mr Major could call himself a politician of the people; Mr Cameron hails from a background of privilege. Above all, the 1974 and 1992 elections were fought in the era of two- or two-and-bit party politics. Today's multi-party politics offers spoiling roles to the United Kingdom Independence Party and the Greens as well as the Scottish National Party.

And there lies the irony. Nothing may be happening in the campaign, but, for all the resonant echoes from history, something big has happened in British politics.

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