AT 59 PAGES, the manifesto published by the Conservatives on November 24th is about half the length of the not-so-little red book launched by Labour a few days earlier. Its brevity is matched by the modesty of its proposals, which take a back seat to the overriding promise to “get Brexit done”—a phrase that appears in the document more than 20 times.

The manifesto proposes a small increase in spending on public services, particularly health (with more nurses and more doctors’ appointments) and law and order (with more police). Workers would get a tax break in the form of a slightly higher threshold for national-insurance contributions, a payroll tax. The cancellation of a planned cut to corporation tax would help to pay for this. “If a single Budget had contained all of these tax and spending proposals we would have been calling it modest,” said Paul Johnson, head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think-tank. “As a blueprint for five years in government the lack of significant policy action is remarkable.”

If few people get excited about the manifesto, that will suit the Conservatives nicely. They are some 13 points ahead of Labour in the polls. An analysis published on November 23rd by Datapraxis, a research firm, combined polling and demographic data to conclude that the Tories were on track for a 48-seat majority. The Conservatives’ task in the two-and-a-half remaining weeks is not to mess it up.

If that sounds easy, consider how the previous election went, in 2017. Theresa May began with a much bigger lead than the Conservatives enjoy now, only to blow it by polling day. Perhaps the biggest mistake of her campaign was her manifesto, which included an ambitious but ill-thought-out plan to make the well-off shoulder more of the cost of their care in old age. Dubbed the “dementia tax”, the policy hastened Mrs May’s slide in the polls.

Boris Johnson, her successor, seems to have learned from that mistake, judging by his plain-vanilla policies. The danger, if anything, is that he has taken the lesson too far. The Tories seem to have few ideas on any subject beyond Brexit. When it comes to social care, the tricky subject that sunk Mrs May, this year’s Conservative manifesto has no long-term plan other than to “urgently seek a cross-party consensus in order to bring forward the necessary proposal and legislation”.

The Tories have done their best to play it safe with their short and undetailed manifesto. It may help them on election day, but it is not much of a blueprint for government. If the polls are right and Mr Johnson is returned to office, voters must hope that he has some more ideas up his sleeve.

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