WELL, here's something to confuse the election guessing industry - the feelgood factor is sky high.

Across the country, says a top economic consultancy, consumer confidence has reached its highest level since the 1980s' boom.

And here, in the North West, optimism is at the record level of plus-21 on the "all's OK" chart.

People are feeling positive for lots of reasons, the experts say - falling unemployment, tax cuts, low inflation and windfalls of free cash or shares from their building societies and insurance companies.

But is it not strange that this is the situation that the government have been waiting to develop - and might take much of the credit for - and yet, according to the opinion polls, the voters are doing the very opposite of thanking them for it?

Indeed, the latest survey today shows the Tories plunging further behind Labour. Support for Tony Blair's party is up three points, widening the gap to 22 per cent - which, at the ballot box, would give Labour the biggest one-party majority this century.

As a former Prime Minister said of politics, it's a funny old world.

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