IT IS no coincidence that the day hundreds of campaigners, trade unionists and socialists came together to launch the People's Convention for the NHS, the Tories rushed forward with promises of a massive cash injection for the health service.

The NHS regularly appears as the public's number one concern in lists compiled by pollsters. It is also the issue on which people are least likely to trust the Conservative Party, and with good reason.

The Tory record on a health service they have opposed since its inception is plain.

The chaotic fragmentation, privatisation and underfunding of the last five years are obvious, while hundreds of thousands of staff who have seen their wages fall ever further behind inflation are hardly going to be convinced by David Cameron doing a five-minute piece to camera on how deeply he cares.

So Ed Miliband was almost certainly right that people will not believe an uncosted Tory announcement that is clearly the result of panic at Labour's tiny lead in the polls.

The danger of the Tory attack is not that it might convince people who care about the NHS to vote Conservative, but that it highlights the inadequate nature of Labour's own plans.

Labour is pledging thousands more doctors, nurses and midwives as part of its £2.5 billion a year "time to care" investment in the health service, funded from the proceeds of its mansion tax.

This is all to the good, and a cap on private-sector profit in the NHS will also save some public money, though not as much as could be salvaged by booting the privateers out altogether - as demanded by Saturday's People's Convention and backed by left-wing parties including the Greens, the Communist Party, Tusc and others. 

But it falls short of the investment that will be needed if the health service is not just to be protected from decline but reformed in the ambitious - and laudable - manner set out so eloquently by shadow health secretary Andy Burnham in this newspaper at the weekend.

The integration of health and social care Mr Burnham envisages is essential to building an NHS fit for the challenges of an ageing population, but it will mean hiring more staff.

That's without even mentioning giving those staff the decent pay and conditions they deserve and without which patient care will inevitably suffer.

So how has Miliband got himself into a situation where the Tories are offering more money for the NHS than he is?

On the airwaves he seeks to explain it as Labour being responsible, taking more care to ensure it can fund its promises because it intends to keep them.

Tory manifesto pledges come cheap because they will be broken, as after the last election were promises not to raise VAT or attack child benefit.

But had Labour not shackled itself to the coalition's spending plans - plans designed around massive spending cuts - then it could see Osborne's billions and raise him some. 

Funding new staff from a tax on mansions worth over £2 million is one thing, but why does Labour run so scared of raising the most progressive tax there is - income tax on high earners?

A return to a 50 per cent top rate on those earning £150,000 or more is hardly radical. Miliband should note that every shift to the left by his party boosts its performance in the polls. Its current lead over the Tories only emerged after the promise to abolish the non-dom status that allows the super-wealthy to avoid tax.

People who like the Conservatives' spending plans are going to vote Conservative. Labour needs to stop its futile fishing in Tory waters and announce the taxes on the rich and investment in public that millions of its natural supporters want.