On Monday morning this week I awoke to the radio thinking I had overslept to April. The general election campaign was in full swing, the politicians knocking seven bells out of each other.

Top of their agendas – surprise, surprise – were the public finances with Labour claiming the coalition is running the NHS into the ground and the Tories maintaining their deficit-reduction policy has been a success. Neither are true and the question is not just how long voters are prepared to put up with this dispiriting obfuscation but whether, in their refusal to accept fiscal realities, they are to blame for it.

Local government is the dog that didn’t bark. Despite real cuts of 30% at a time when the NHS has had at worst standstill budgets, local authorities have not featured in this week’s electioneering. Local government has got on with a difficult job.