IT has become standard comment in the election campaign that the NHS is Labour's strongest issue and the economy belongs to the Tories.

So much so that when Labour use their opposition days at Holyrood for debates on the economy, Tory MSPs can't wait to start winding them up about it.

But the economy cuts through every issue.

The way we run the economy affects the funds available to pay for public services.

It determines how much poverty exists in our society, and how much wealth is hoarded by the richest. Economic injustice is one of the primary causes of global conflict which threatens our security.

And of course the challenge of running an economy which respects the environmental limits of the world around us is a defining issue of our age.

So it's dismal to see this issue boiled down to simplistic and misleading headlines.

Is the economy growing, and by what percentage?

That's how we usually define economic success or failure, but the measure of growth only tells us how much money is circulating, not what it's doing, how it's being made, or in whose interests it is working.

It doesn't tell us whether the economy is exploiting people and the planet, or looking after us and meeting our needs.

It doesn't tell us whether the jobs being created are well paid, or if profits are being soaked up by the few at the top of the pile.

Most politicians are obsessing about another simplistic figure in this election too - the deficit.

All the main UK parties present the deficit as the key priority, and are willing to slash public spending because of it.

This is despite the fact that many of the most sustainable and equal European countries have much higher levels of public spending; they know that you need to invest if you're going to have a healthy and balanced economy.

There are far more important questions to ask than how quickly the next UK Government should reduce the deficit.

Will they do it by cutting weapons of mass destruction, or by cutting education and care services?

What will they do to turn around a low wage, low productivity, low aspiration economy?

The UK created hundreds of billions of pounds since the economic crash, pumping new money into the banks to restore their balance sheets.

That's the scale of ambition needed for investment in the real economy, in the well paid jobs that our country needs.

It's vital that we don't believe the right wing ideology that tells us we have to cut our way out of the current problem.

It's investment that's needed, or we'll just end up digging ourselves even deeper into a hole.