How to sell an election

Is it just me or does anyone else think it a bit suspicious that we seem to be hearing of a new Office of Fair Trading attack on supermarkets and suppliers every few minutes these days? Just for good measure we also now have a well documented and long promised 30p a day increase in wages for prisoners scrapped a day before, and surely this must be pure coincidence, the local elections.

Perhaps I am being cynical but while the Government inflation figures seem to be based on the number of wins Derby have managed in the Premiership this season in the real world, where people actually have to pay bills, buy fuel, heat their homes and eat, it is well into double figures.

Now the old cynic in me thinks there might just be a connection between the OFT suddenly becoming the champion of the consumer, St George and the Supermarket and all that, and the local elections. Mind you promoting the idea of Labour being the champion of the consumer, unless of course the consumer is registered in a tax haven and consuming public funds, is one which will be a challenge for the new army of spinmeisters surrounding the dour Scot.

Similarly while paying prisoners more is not seen as a sure fire vote grabber by the election planners not paying them might strike a chord at the ballot box - tough on crime, party of law and order and all that - free stab vest with every Home Secretary . . .

The fact is though that there has been no increase in more than a decade and all the stuff about not being able to give prisoners 37.5 per cent when public sector workers are being offered a mere two and a bit per cent really is a red herring. We are talking pence here, £4 up to £5.50 and using prisoners for political purposes does seem a bit underhand. Whatever you might think of prisoners or their rights the Government had given its word and broken it, which says much more about the moral bankruptcy of Whitehall than it does about those residing at Her Majesty's pleasure.