Bring It On?
David Cameron and the Conservative Party are calling for Brown to “stop dithering” about whether or not to call an election, and effectively tells him to ‘bring it on’. At the same time, William Hague says at the conference in Blackpool that “the Conservative Party is ready, it is hungry for victory and if Gordon Brown ever summons up the courage to call an election we are going to beat him.”
The polls appear to say the opposite, giving Brown leads of 7-11 points - if the election was tomorrow, of course. But it is also claimed that much of this increase in the polls is focused up in the Labour heartlands of North England, with the electorate in both Scotland and South England not being anywhere near as enamoured with the Great Clunking Fist. But the recent boundary changes “give” the Tories an extra 10-5 or so extra seats straight off. This is also compounded by the fact that in 35 council by-elections since Brown took over as prime minister, the Tories have a nine-point lead over Labour. And these are real votes, not just opinion polls - especially based as they are on the Brown Bounce and Labour conference.
If Brown calls an election, he can only lose. If he does anything less than come back with a majority greater than his current 66, he will have effectively lost, no matter that he still has a majority in the Commons. Thus, for him to win it would require a virtual decimation of the Tories - something that is unlikely, even with his poll lead.
By calling for Brown to stop “dithering” and just call an election, the Tories are aiding and abetting Brown and his government in painting him into a corner - very soon he will have to either call an election or look like a dithering coward, which isn’t exactly a characteristic desirable in a prime minister. By allowing himself to be boarded in in this way, Brown has missed at least one trick. He should have either ruled out an election or called one in his conference speech - even if it was simply to say that there would be an election this autumn, but without mentioning a date yet. As his loyalist ministers have been stoking up the election fires, if he does not go it will be a big blow to his credibility.
I’m still not convinced he will though.
Sources: The Times, The Telegraph, BBC
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Maybe he’s keeping the decision under his hat to steal a bit of thunder from the tory conference?