Ed Miliband election speech: neither Labour nor the Tories can play away

When briefing a leading journalist at a Labour press conference during the 2005 election, I was loudly told to combine sex with travel. I was trying to give the journo the briefing paper for the conference. "I don't want to know what the Tories are going to do," he insisted, "I want to know what you are going to do.”

The journalist was right that the briefing's prospectus for government, such as it was, was wholly negative. It made no positive case for Labour, only seeking to frighten voters into Tory aversion.

Nearly ten years on and the quality of political discourse has not improved. Labour believes that fear of what the Tories will do to the NHS will trump what fears the Tories can generate about what Labour will do to the economy. The Tories hold the opposite belief. There are various ways in which we might break out of these cycles of negativity. Labour might convince voters that they are no threat to the economy, thus blunting the Tory attack. Alternatively, the Tories might persuade the electorate that the NHS is safe with them, rendering Labour's attack redundant.

If the NHS is home turf for Labour, while the economy is for the Tories, the weakness of both parties makes them fearful of trying to win away from home: Labour on the economy, the Tories on the NHS. If nil-nil draws are the best that either feels confident enough to seek away from home, overall victory is felt to depend on resounding victories in the home fixtures. When going for such victories, teams risk outlandish positions. The Labour claim that more Tory-led government will "end the NHS as we know it," like the Tory assertion that Labour threatens "economic chaos," are the political equivalents of the all-out-attack football formation of five strikers.

Five strikers is bold stuff and these are big claims. But such brashness at home is born of weakness away. Home wins will be recorded by home supporters, such as most of those watching Ed Miliband today in his rally in the Labour city of Manchester, strongly disputed by travelling fans, which would include any Tories that sneaked into the rally. The more Labour says the Tories are a threat to the NHS, the more Labour supporters will be sure of this. The more the Tories say that Labour are a menace to the economy, the more vehemently Tory supporters will proclaim this. The broad mass of the electorate, however, with limited fidelity to either party, will feel like they are listening to a pair of broken records. Bad enough in isolation, particularly wretched when combined.

Nick Clegg says that he can bring harmony to these faulty records but the records are so loud and Clegg so quiet that he will win few over. Both elections and wars are fought in the air (eg national media) and on the ground (eg doorsteps). The Lib Dems are an army without an air force, such is the diminishment of Clegg. But Miliband too is displaying doubts about his air force. The ambition showcased in today's rally to have 4 million doorstep conversations is laudable but doesn't imply a surfeit of confidence that he'll successfully get his message across the airwaves.

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Labour enjoys a 16 point lead over the Conservatives as the best party to run the NHS, while the Conservatives hold lead of around 15 points over Labour on the economy. Labour strategists are as justified in seeing the NHS as their home ground as the Tories are in seeing the economy as theirs. Equally, it's hard to wholly swallow the Labour insistence that all the struggles of the NHS are generated by the Tories. An ageing population and medical cost inflation are challenges to be confronted by governments of any kind. The Tory insistence that Labour government would necessitate economic ruin is similarly unreal.

While the polling might make the NHS Labour's home territory and the economy the Tories', their arguments do not need to be too closely scrutinised to uncover a degree of artifice. These may be home grounds but the main stands are mirages. It doesn't matter. The fans are going elsewhere.

Who is winning? None of the above.