News from the New Party

The man who ran away

One of Gordon Brown's predecessors once opined that a week is a long time in politics.  It certainly seems like an eternity ago - just before the Conservative Party conference - that David Cameron's credibility was rock-bottom and the prime minister was carrying all before him.  The situation today is precisely the opposite. 

It is not so much the fact of Brown's refusal to call an election this autumn, as the context of the decision that has caused so much outrage.  Much of the election speculation over the past few months has been fuelled by government sources.  The prime minister himself has declined to rule out an autumn election until the last possible moment (an election called today could not be held earlier than 1st November).  The polls have been unremittingly favourable for Labour up until perhaps 48 hours before Brown's decision became public.  And yet we are now supposed to believe that the polls have nothing to do with this, the prime minister was always sceptical about an autumn election and would rather have the opportunity to spend the next two years explaining his vision to the country than do so over the next four weeks in an election campaign.

David Cameron is right to imply that this is an insult to the voters' intelligence.  It is, however, an obvious but scarcely avoidable lie.  The outright truth - that Brown has run away from the prospect of an election because he thinks he might not win it - cannot be spoken.  Better for Labour to endure the wrath of the nation for a few weeks and hope for something to turn up, than to throw everything away on an unnecessary election which they have nevertheless been trailing themselves for several weeks.

The prime minister is therefore seriously damaged by these events.  The inescapable conclusion is that Gordon Brown ran away from an election he thought he might not win.  The corollary is that David Cameron and the Conservative Party have been acknowledged by the government as being back in the electoral game.  In terms of morale, this will make a profound difference to the way the Conservative Party will conduct itself between now and the next election, whenever that may be.  A week ago they did not themselves believe that they could win: now the prime minister, of all people, has gone on the Andrew Marr Show and practically said that they can.  Add to this that the Tories have now had the opportunity of this victory snatched away from them for at least two years, and the sense of Tory outrage becomes not just understandable, but palpable.  There will be no significant division in the Conservative ranks from now on - Cameron need no longer watch his back. This is the first main change.

The second is that Gordon Brown will emphatically no longer be the beneficiary of any doubt.  Tony Blair was widely distrusted by the time he left office; Gordon Brown on the contrary has enjoyed general goodwill since entering 10 Downing Street.  He has claimed to be a different sort of politician, a man of integrity seeking a new sort of politics: all of this is now seen to be so much eyewash.  New New Labour is just the same old New Labour.  Neither the media, nor the voters are likely to give the Labour leader any more margin for error.  Gordon Brown is about to find out that clinging on by the fingertips can be a painful process.