We haven’t learnt anything from either party this election – it’s polls over policies

WE are now more than a month into the election campaign, and what have we actually learned?

Our country is facing huge challenges.

From trains to roads, the NHS to the criminal justice system, nothing seems to work properly.

Our public services — especially the NHS — are in dire need of reform.

Small boats continue to make a mockery of the idea we have control of our borders.

Legal migration is running at record levels, putting unsustainable pressure on housing and other infrastructure.

Water companies pump out sewage, bills are painfully high and we have no energy policy — other than the ruinous, headlong rush towards net zero.

Abroad, Vladimir Putin cosies up to Kim Jong-un in a new axis of evil.

The Middle East is a tinderbox.

War is raging in Europe.

China crackles with menace — meddling in our democracy, and waging cyber attacks.

Yet from the politicians we have had what?

A narrow — albeit important — row about who will tax us the most, and endless obsessing over opinion polls.

The only debate is about how much Labour will win by, and whether a so-called super-majority is a bad thing.

Sir Keir Starmer has said barely anything at all — which risks him entering No10 with the public blind to his true intentions, and without its approval for the tough decisions which need to be taken.

Today, in a bid to breathe some life into this moribund, miserable election - we begin a four-part series exploring the issues which the politicians have largely ignored.

It starts, on these pages, with Professor Matt Goodwin’s dissection of how mass migration — despite being a crucial issue for the electorate — has become the subject of a “conspiracy of silence”.

Our hope is that — between now and polling day on July 4 — we might get a serious discussion of where our country is heading.