Nearly everything believed to exercise Labour more than the Tories was also named more often as a priority for “me and my family” than for Britain as a whole.
Its awards consume roughly a quarter of public spending. It is hard to see where the tax hikes or spending scaleback to fund them will come from if the Chancellor sticks to his guns.
Over time, proposals have either been denounced as politically correct nonsense, or embraced with an enthusiastic “me, too”-ism. Neither approach is exactly rigorous.
May won five per cent more of the vote than Cameron did two years ago. The margin between having a majority and not having one was performance in marginal seats.
There is no point in any party piling up votes in its safer seats – assuming that voters vital to it, such as younger people in Labour’s case, turn out in large numbers in any event.