Why aren’t the Tories winning? Because they are seen as the party of the rich.

The leader column in this week’s edition of the magazine (please subscribe, by the way) asks an excellent question: Why aren’t the Tories winning? After all, and despite everything, David Cameron has presided over a period of, first, economic stabilisation and, now, some useful quantity of economic growth. His party is better trusted on economic issues than the opposition and, well, Mr Ed Miliband has not yet convinced voters he has the chops to be Prime Minister. As Danny Finklestein observed in The Times yesterday, it is possible to lose despite enjoying one of those advantages but most unusual to lose while being ahead on both these metrics. And yet the Tories may still lose. What gives? It is true, as our editorialist argues, that Cameron has been oddly reluctant to talk about his successes but the problem goes rather further than that. Nor can it simply be ascribed to the lack of a coherent, and optimistic, election message (though that is part of it too.