News from the New Party

Saturday, May 03, 2008

A dead duck

Thursday's election results were so unreservedly awful for the government that any comment from us seems almost superfluous. The statistics speak for themselves: a quarter of Labour councillors standing on Thursday were defeated: less than a quarter of voters were prepared to support Labour candidates. The Conservative lead over labour in projected national vote share is twenty percentage points - and Labour are even behind the Liberal Democrats by the same measure, and the Lib Dem results themselves were unimpressive.

Where do we go from here? Well, for starters, not back to the polling booths for a while. With Labour in such a dismal state the chances of a general election before the Spring of 2010 are minimal. Mutterings about Gordon Brown's leadership will only grow in volume, but the serious possibilities of replacing him seem limited. And although many of the government's current woes can fairly be laid at the door of the prime minister himself, it must also be said that this is hardly the most talented government Britain has ever seen. Even if Mr Brown can be prevailed upon to retire to a dark corner with a revolver and a large Scotch, it is by no means clear (a) who would replace him; and (b) whether it would make any difference to Labour's ultimate fate. No previous governing party has retrieved such a deficit to win a general election within the space of two years. We are therefore doomed to endure in the coming period a government which is not so much a lame duck as a dead duck.

Roll on 2010.

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A dead duck