WITH the GeneralElection just a year away, the campaign is shaping up to be the same phony war as the last one – with the awful pain ahead hidden from the voters.

That can be the only conclusion from the last week of headlines, promises, analysis and fallout following the “Budget for savers and pensioners”.

An innocent visitor from outer space would be forgiven for thinking the country faces a rosy, tax-cutting, prosperous future.

There’s David Cameron pledging to ease the suffering of wealthy Southern homeowners by lifting the inheritance tax threshold to a cool £1m – at a cost of £3bn.

Meanwhile, Nick Clegg is boasting how millions now pay no income tax and that he’s plotting how to extend this “workers’ bonus” into the next Parliament.

And the two Eds – Miliband and Balls – also have an income tax cut up their sleeve, vowing to restore the 10p rate that Gordon Brown so foolishly got rid of.

Hurrah! The Treasury must have stumbled across a magic money tree for these goodies to be offered to the country that – not so long ago – ministers insisted was “bankrupt”.

Well, no, as it happens. Instead, all the parties are conspiring to change the subject rather than make us face the grim reality.

Which means it’s just like 2010.

During the last election campaign, Mr Cameron vowed there would be “no frontline cuts” and to send packing any minister that had the nerve to propose them.

The Lib Dems warned immediate cuts would be disastrous – only to embrace them enthusiastically weeks later – and the “c”

word had to be dragged from Mr Brown’s pursed lips. Now consider what the experts are saying about Britain’s financial position five years on.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the Treasury has pencilled in cuts of more than £20bn for the financial year after the May 2015 election.

Worse, the Chancellor is widening that gap, by pledging permanent tax cuts to be funded by “unspecified spending cuts and our old friend tax avoidance measures”.

Around 60 per cent of cuts are still to come.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) put the gap at £24.8bn and had a stab at the planned spending reductions at each department.

So, £7bn would have to be slashed from defence by 2019, with similar horrors at business (£3.9bn), local government (£3.6bn) and non-school education (£3.5bn).

As I said, all parties are ducking this terrifying challenge, but this is a much bigger headache for Labour, than for the others.

After the past four years, you know what you will get from the Conservatives – more huge cuts to social security and to town halls, especially in poorer areas.

Labour has outlined next-to-no cuts and does not appear to know where they will be found – which will haunt the party in the year to come.

A REVAMPED Tyne and Wear Metro, a new Tyne crossing, an upgraded A1 between Dishforth and Barton and a study into dualling the A1 north of Newcastle.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister laid claim to the lot, telling MPs: “All those proposals were brought forward under this Government.”

Oh dear! The first three projects were definitely inherited from Labour, but I’ll give Mr Cameron the A1 to Scotland... if the dualling ever happens!