IT was just over half a century ago that Harold Macmillan famously told a Conservative rally that "most of our people have never had it so good".
Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg may soon face an election where they will have to tell voters: "This is as good as it gets."
Macmillan's soundbite captured the spirit of post-war aspiration, but it could just as easily have applied to t
he last decade for
the large sections of the population who have enjoyed huge improvements in their standard of living.
Holidays, cars and homes that were once out of reach are now considered by many families to represent the basic requirements of a comfortable life.
Unfortunately, too much of that feeling of economic well-being was created by easy access to credit
and an overheated property market rather than genuine wealth creation.
One of the most curious aspects of the current economic difficulties has been the extent to which retail sales held up long after the first warnings that trouble lay ahead. Marks & Spencer and John Lewis, whose performances are considered to be bellwethers for the health of the high street, have now posted results which show consumers are feeling the pinch.
Yet, as recently as May, retail figures jumped by the biggest margin since January 1986 – including a near 10 per cent rise in the amount spent on clothes.
Many explanations have been offered to explain this quirk, including some questions about how the figures are calculated. However, there may be a very simple but worrying trend at work. Could it be that after so many years of relatively good times and a Chancellor insisting boom and bust had been conquered, people simply refused to believe the evidence in front of them and continued to spend as if the problems in the economy were merely a short-term blip?
If that is the case, the task facing politicians in the years to come will be even more daunting as it signals a reluctance on the part of consumers to accept that hard times are likely to be with us for quite some time.
The green debate that has leapt on to the political agenda in recent years gives a good insight into the challenge now facing the major parties. All claim to be convinced by the science that says human beings are causing dangerous changes to the climate. All say that failure to take action now will have dire consequences in the future. And all have been understandably reluctant to tell the public some blunt truths about what serious attempts to cut carbon emissions will mean to their bank balance.
The reason is clear. Until alternative technologies become available, cutting emissions in a meaningful way involves consuming significantly less, and that is not a vote-winning strategy.
The same dynamic will be at work in the months to come, but this time covering a much broader swathe of Government policy. And that is not just a problem for Labour.
At this stage in the electoral cycle, the criticism of the opposition parties is always that their policies lack detail. Their usual excuse is they cannot anticipate what conditions they will inherit years in advance. At the moment, they have a far better justification – in the current climate any spending plan is unlikely to survive a week before having to be revised.
But they already know this: after the next election, the new Government's cupboard will be bare. The debate will no longer be over how to broaden and improve public services, but simply whether it is possible to maintain existing standards.
Realism will replace aspiration as the central theme of politics and that is a much harder message to sell to voters already suffering.
The banking crisis only makes matters worse. Governments are already having to justify bailing out the banks whose irresponsible lending has contributed so heavily to the world's economic problems. The problems securing public backing in the US for the Government's support package show the scale of that task.
Voters will find it an even more bitter pill to swallow when they are told that while money is being poured into banks, public spending may have to fall or taxes rise.
In the US, either John McCain or Barack Obama is three months away from taking up residence in the White House. David Cameron must believe that he will walk into Downing Street in Spring 2010. All three will have contemplated using their time in office to meet – and indeed raise – the aspirations of their respective electorates.
Now they face the prospect of lowering expectations. How the political outlook has changed, and so quickly.
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