Sep 28 2007
Early UK election?
We are told that there is a battle between grey beards (against an early election) and young turks (in favour).
Grey beards have settled for holding senior positions in Gordon Brown’s government. They made their decision last time not to stand for the leadership and are reconciled to never being Prime Minister themselves. Some of the young Turks harbour ambitions. It is in their interest to have an early election, as it speeds the day when Gordon Brown will stand down.
If they think Gordon can win one election from here, he gets a maximum of five years from an early election. If he waits until 2010, he would get 7 and a half years if he won. There is always the added chance that he could lose the election which speeds things up for the young and impatient.
From Gordon Brown’s point of view there is a case to go long. He probably believes that he can improve things in the UK compared to Mr Blair. He needs time to show that. Why fight more elections than you need to? Being Prime Minister for almost eight years might appeal to him - he can do that with one election victory if he delays the election and wins. Being Prime Minister for a few months would be a collosal failure.
The spinners and briefers are not helping him. We have heard:
Position One: (on taking office) No need for an early election. John Major did not hold one in similar circumstances, and went on to win.
Position Two: (Brown bounce) Gordon may announce early election in his Conference speech in September, forcing Conservatives to cancel their conference.
Position Three (Brown bounce tails off) They plan Conference speech with no mention of election.
Position Four (Brown bounce reappears) They spin that Gordon Brown could announce early general election on the day of David Cameron’s speech to Conservatives.
Position Five (Labour conference) They spin that Gordon Brown will tell Parliament as soon as it reconvenes there will be an early election.
Position Six (today, after poor local Council by election results for Labour) They say that Gordon Brown will examine polling with his advisers this week-end and make a decision.
They should be careful lest they make their Prime Minister look too opportunistic if he calls an election and too indecisive if he doesn’t. If he appears opportunistic any poll lead could evaporate quickly in the campaign, as people question why we need an election at all and suspicions build that he is rushing it to avoid bad news coming out. He will also remember that the polling in Scotland is poor, and some of his leading MPs are at risk there. The Prime Minister has to make his own decision on this, and would be advised to tell the briefers and spinners to keep quiet until they know what he wants to do.
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Brown has been toying with the media by encouraging this election frenzy via his colleagues whilst at the same time trying to give the impression that his mind is above such things. He gets an easy ride from the media because they see him as a winner and don’t want to be frozen out as a result of attacking him. His many and massive mistakes as Chancellor are ignored and the most positive spin has been put on his handling of situations which in fact have not been dealt with e.g. foot and mouth.
Brown, by showing his control freakery throughout the Labour conference, has provided the Conservatives with the perfect backdrop to their conference. There is plenty of ammunition to use against Brown but above all Blackpool should be the venue for the Conservatives to show that they understand the problems people face, have a vision for this country with properly thought out policies and a team of competent people (not a one-man band) to put them into practice. George Osborne’s comments this week suggest that, at last, the major issues will no longer be sidelined and a complete package will be put forward. Anything less will confirm our worst fears for the future of your Party and the country, whenever Brown decides to call an election.
Margaret Beckett didn’t look too keen on an early election. As one of the Labour old guard she will remember what happened to Mr Callaghan all too well. So why is she scared of an early election? Could it be that Mrs Beckett doesn’t believe Labour are galloping ahead as the snapshot polls indicate? Those young cocksure Labour MPs who have never tasted defeat have already written off the Conservative party but I think Margaret Beckett has a bit more sense and knows defeat in an early poll is more than a possibility.
Rolls-Royce snubs UK over new site:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/85ad06ee-6d2d-11dc-ab19-0000779fd2ac.html
The UK doesn’t train engineers or support manufacturing, so the most important engineering co to have survived the pre-Thatcher depradations of socialism locates to a country that does.
Reply: We do need to take aciton to train more engineers and scientists, and create a betetr climate for manufacturing. Ideas on how to do this are in Economic Policy Review document I recently helped produce.
I say bring it on. The polling support might be a mile wide but it is an inch deep. Once the message starts to sink in that Brown was instrumental in delivering the pain that people feel now, that will evaporate.
From the PMs point of view, I imagine he must think, ” Things don’t get better than this.” He is a long way ahead in the polls and many people it is said believe he is doing a good job. These polls, I believe do not necessarily show a love for Mr Brown, but may suggest a dislike for Mr Cameron. I always thought that Mr Cameron is too much like Mr Blair and look how unpopular he became in the latter stages of his premiership. I have always been a Conservative supporter, however I always found myself questioning where Dave “me too” Cameron was taking the party. Nothing recently has changed my mind.
I feel our party should be streets ahead in the opinion polls given the dissatisfaction of Blair’s handling of Iraq and his blatant disregard for the opinions of the British people. He stated that he wished to clean up the image of politics and politicians, but I think he failed miserably in this respect.
There seems to be a general apathy amongst the electorate as many feel there is no real choice between the main parties. As I have stated before…No real choice means no real democracy.
I suggest that if there is any difference between the two main parties, Mr Cameron needs to focus on promoting these differences.
In an ideal world, Mr Brown would combine an election with a vote on the treaty (sic) and therefore we could kill two birds with one stone….This may also get the voters out in force. If Mr Brown then won he would have a clear mandate to go towards further integration into a United States of Europe. This won’t happen, as Mr Brown knows full well he’d loose.
Perhaps Mr Cameron could push Mr Brown to go for this option, which I believe if promoted correctly, could sway public opinion in Mr Cameron’s favour.
Reply: that is the Conservative party’s position - the leadership have said they want an early referendum and an early election.
It’s too late for Brown to call an early election with any grace. If he had to call an election, he should have done it straight after taking up his post.
Nevertheless, if an election is forthcoming, the Tories will have to hammer home these two points:
- By calling the snap election, Gordon Brown has admitted that he has neither the confidence in his ability, nor the inclination to improve the country in the long term and therefore has no confidence in his ability to win an election later on: a Brown victory basically means five years of rot.
- By waiting so long before calling the election, Gordon Brown is a cynical opportunist who impassively waited for a period of decent headlines in the hope of using them to dupe the public into letting him cling to an extra couple of years in power rather than to obtain a clear mandate.