An election won on the economy — or is it ‘vote now, pay later’?

I found the Chancellor outside his local supermarket, conducting what he called a stationary walkabout. He had brought his spaniel, which canvassed the voters by licking them: ‘I suppose,’ said one, ‘that with a dog like that, you can’t be all bad.’ On the political battleground, this was a peaceful enclave, and indeed some of his colleagues had wanted to fight the campaign without him. At one point they thought they would lose it. He rather thought that it had already been won, and by him. Later on, in his account of his time at the Treasury, he said as much: ‘An election won on the economy.’ This was Nigel Lawson, and his party was on its way, eighteen years ago, to completing a hat trick of victories. His old adversary, Gordon Brown, must recognise the feeling. Some of his colleagues had thought that the campaign would go better without him.