It seemed almost funny – Rishi Sunak’s claim this week that the Conservatives’ plan for the economy was working.

However, the Prime Minister was clearly not trying to crack a joke. He was with a straight face trying to contend that the Conservatives were doing a good job on the economy, in his head-to-head debate with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer on ITV on Tuesday night.

And, given the damage the Tories have caused to UK growth and to the economy’s future potential, with all the consequences of that for living standards, it was not amusing at all.

Almost as lamentable was Sir Keir’s own unconvincing musings on the economy.

Meanwhile, the Labour leader’s playing to the gallery by seemingly painting a picture of himself as being tougher than Mr Sunak on immigration was utterly woeful.

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It is also a bizarre stance. You get the impression Sir Keir is at pains to woo the Brexiters with his immigration chat. However, the fact of the matter is that the plunge in net immigration to the UK from the European Economic Area in the wake of the 2016 Brexit vote has cost the UK economy very dearly indeed.

And the ending of free movement of people between the UK and EEA, with Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit, has exacerbated greatly the country’s skills and labour shortages crisis.

You would think Sir Keir would know this, especially given his insistence that Labour has a solid grasp of what is required for the UK economy. Maybe he does know it, and simply does not want to admit it because he views it as politically inconvenient. If he does not know it, this would suggest he lacks a grasp of the fundamental economic issues for the UK.

From Mr Sunak, his insistence that the Tory “plan” for the economy was working was a somewhat familiar refrain.

It is difficult indeed to ascertain what this “plan” actually is, given the Tories’ key policies appear to be a major hindrance to the economy.

Brexit has caused enormous damage, and will continue to do so, through the loss of frictionless trade with the UK’s biggest trading partner as well as the ending of free movement of people from and to EEA countries.

And then we have had the Tory austerity, the effects of which we must realise are very much a permanent feature of the UK economy and a dismal drag as well as being disgusting from a societal perspective.

So, while Mr Sunak might believe the Tories have a “plan”, this is surely a matter of definition. And he looks to be stretching the definition of “plan” beyond credible limits.

The Prime Minister talked in the debate on Tuesday about "uncertain times” calling for clear action and a bold plan.

Mr Sunak pointed to the furlough scheme, claimed he had had a “clear plan” to bring inflation “back to normal”, and said “now our economy is growing again”, insisting his “plan” is working.

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He added: “I know you’re only just starting to see the benefits of that.”

What he did not highlight was that the Tories, with their hard Brexit and its various major effects, played a big part in driving annual UK consumer prices index inflation up to a 41-year high of 11.1% in October 2022.

The simple fact of the matter is that the UK’s inflation crisis has been so much worse than that in many other countries.

What is more, the UK economy fell into recession in the final three months of last year with a second consecutive quarterly decline in gross domestic product.

UK GDP did rise by 0.6% quarter-on-quarter in the opening three months of this year.

However, the overall picture is one of protracted stagnation.

Suren Thiru, economics director at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, last month called the UK’s exit from recession a “hollow victory” and observed “the big picture remains one of an economy struggling with stagnation”.

He declared: “The economy could struggle to kick on further in the second quarter as the boost to people’s incomes from weaker inflation is partly curtailed by renewed caution to spend and invest, amid higher unemployment and ongoing political uncertainty.”

Sir Keir said of Mr Sunak in the televised debate: “He says the plan is working, so the question for him is why has he called the election now?

“Because if he thinks things are going to get better towards the second half of this year, why has he called it now? He’s called it now because he knows, and I’ll ask him this, he knows inflation is going to go back up, he knows energy prices are going to go back up in the autumn.

"That’s what he’s not telling you. So he says the plan is working, but I don’t think he believes the plan is working."

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It is certainly difficult to know why Mr Sunak has called an election now. However, you get the impression that he might, at least to some extent, even believe his own story on the economy.

He has never seemed like a man lacking in confidence about his version of events.

Returning to Sir Keir, what is so disappointing is that Labour has not offered a coherent vision of a much brighter economic future for the UK.

It is surely difficult to imagine, of course, that Labour could do a worse job on the economy than the Conservatives.

However, the refusal of both parties to even consider taking the UK back into the European single market, which would at a stroke provide a huge fillip to the country’s economic fortunes, is a sorry state of affairs for those interested in UK economic success and maximising living standards.

It would have been good to have had Lord Michael Heseltine, who served as a Conservative Cabinet minister under prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, chipping in from the sidelines of the television debate to ask why both the Tories and Labour are refusing to acknowledge the damage being done by Brexit.

Speaking ahead of the debate on Tuesday night, European Movement UK president Lord Heseltine had said: “At nine o'clock this evening the two main party leaders will go head to head on ITV. On the issue that is of paramount importance to our country - our relations with Europe - there has been a conspiracy of silence. As I have said before, I believe that this makes the campaigns the most dishonest of modern times.”

He surely has a point.

Instead of a discussion of the crucial European aspect, what we had was a pretty vacuous debate, certainly in terms of the economy.

Television debates do not really lend themselves to an examination of matters of substance, of course, but people would have been entitled to expect something more in the way of a proper economic vision from each of the party leaders. They most certainly did not get it.