SOME truths are hiding in plain sight. That’s how it feels with the Christmas election as it enters its second week. Ordinary people look on as spectators while the vast communication machines of television, radio, newspapers and social media grind into action.

Most of the media is batting – and betting – heavily for the establishment party favoured by the very wealthy in the UK, namely, Boris Johnson’s Conservatives. And who can blame them? The austerity years orchestrated by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition under David Cameron, and his successors, have been a boom-time for the richest amongst us.

According to Inequality Briefing, the top 1% now owns as much wealth as 60% of the combined UK population.

Besides, most media outlets are either owned by billionaires or controlled by a self-selecting caste, the majority of whom are well-heeled, privately educated, based in the South East, and broadly happy with the status quo.

Perhaps that’s why it feels so hard for ordinary people to get to the truth in this winter election. And each of the main parties has starkly different narratives on that question.

Take the Conservatives. They assure us this is a Brexit election with one real aim: namely, “getting it done”. What “it” means is far from clear and hides a multitude of sins. No one really knows what Boris Johnson’s Brexit will really look like (including, if his recent gaffes in Northern Ireland are anything to go by, Johnson himself) as it has not been negotiated yet. It’s a punt on the never never, a bluff or a hope, a comforting Ponzi scheme the nation is supposed to trust.

As for the Conservatives’ other policies, these seem to take the form of unplanned and uncosted announcements. Ones that often don’t make sense. Take their claims for the NHS.

According to BBC Fact Check, when Boris Johnson boasted of “the 40 new hospitals that we are building”, he was being creative with the truth. In reality, the government has pledged a £2.7bn investment for six hospitals over five years, and that a further 34 hospitals will share a mere £100m to start developing future projects.

Johnson has also claimed record amounts of money are going into the NHS. According to BBC Fact Check, since 1949 the NHS budget has never fallen under any government and on average has risen by 3.6% a year, allowing for inflation. However, between 2010 and 2018, it rose by just 1.3% on average, leading to “the most dramatic spending squeeze in the history of the NHS in England.”

Boris Johnson is fond of quoting Latin phrases, so here’s one, caveat emptor: “buyer beware”.

Voters can hardly be blamed for viewing all government spending pledges with a healthy dose of scepticism.

What about the Tories’ former coalition partners, the Lib Dems?

Again, they have a simplistic take on the election, if their campaign launch is anything to go by. Essentially, they claim that, however unlikely it seems, they will form a majority government and scrap Brexit altogether on the basis of that mandate. Other polices to deal with Britain’s problems get little prominence.

Finally, we come to Labour. Jeremy Corbyn’s party are remorselessly telling us the election is about two things: dealing with the rampant regional and class inequality in the UK through renewing our battered public services and economy, and investing huge sums to turn around the climate crisis by re-inventing Britain as an advanced, carbon-neutral country.

For them, the Brexit impasse is solvable through a second referendum based on a sensible Leave option vs Remain.

Is this Christmas election really about the leaders of the main parties and their personalities? Real life does not support such a notion.

No leader determines everything that happens in a government unless you live in a tiny banana republic.

In complex, diverse Britain, what matters are the policies followed by those in charge.

I would urge my fellow citizens to not get sucked into meaningless media tattle about the different party leaders.

For the sake of your and your children’s futures, for the common good, please “buyer beware”: read the small print of what they are actually proposing. Our future health and prosperity depend on it.