With the next General Election now less than 18 months away 2014 will increasingly be dominated by political posturing.
Naturally, as a Labour peer, I believe the chance of my party winning is high.
This Government has had its successes – I cannot fault its higher education and science policy while, whatever his critics say, Vince Cable has been one of this country’s best Business Secretaries.
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Yet, despite the positive picture on economic growth, Labour remains up to seven per cent ahead in the opinion polls.
Why do I think Labour will continue to prosper?
The growth we have seen is basically down to people borrowing more money – it is a funny sort of growth.
It is good that employment is going up and unemployment is coming down … but what sort of jobs are we creating? All too often it is lowly paid, part-time, zero hours.
The Government talks about exports but makes it very difficult with the current rise in sterling. Does the one arm know what the other is doing?
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Labour leader Ed Miliband comes in for a regular pasting from the Tory media, but is in fact someone to be trusted.
Both he and Ed Balls have learned that Labour must not make promises they will struggle to deliver.
What they will put in place is inward investment, a proper skills base and making the 海角视频 fit for purpose.
Of course, there is a lot of politics to come, but what will be interesting is how the Liberal Democrat wing of the coalition addresses the coming election and, from the Conservative perspective, how the 海角视频IP threat pans out.
So there is much to play for.
As for Birmingham, there are landmarks to look forward to such as the re-vamped New Street Station and development projects like the new Paradise Circus. There have been some inward investment successes.
But the big challenge for the city is its skills base. Birmingham needs more high skilled and high paid jobs and it just does not have them in sufficient numbers.
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We are too dependent on the bottom end – minimum wage shop work and the like.
This is what Birmingham must address.
* Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya is a Labour peer and founder of Warwick Manufacturing Group