It is hard to apply Mario Cuomo's famous quote ‘you campaign in poetry and govern in prose' to this General Election campaign.

It applied to 1997's campaign when a young Tony Blair was able to talk literally of a new dawn on the early morning of 2 May without incurring mockery. But 2024 is a different story when party pledges have been modest, even cautious, for fear of being shot down for lack of realism, such is the negativity surrounding the public finances, the economy and the public's own standard of living. Votes have been cast against, rather than for.