The Wardman Wire

No time for a novice or time to trust the man with a plan?
It’s back to business for our parliamentarians, and there is a lot of business to be done – not least saving capitalism and democracy as we know it. The tag lines and sound bites of the conference season already seem a distant memory. A cold bucket of water has been thrown over the events and what are we left with?

Well, it is a choice between “No time for a novice” and the “Man with a plan”. While it still might be too early to say, and despite very good performances from both Osborne and Cameron, it seems that Labour enters the “new season” as the form team taking a points win over the summer. And why? Simple: David Cameron has STILL not signed the deal with the voters.

Brown’s jibe shades it
This might be hard to swallow for the Tory faithful and the polls, you might argue, suggest otherwise. But Brown’s novice jibe is the last remaining sound from the conferences that is still reverberating. For once, Brown got it right with his rhetoric. He tapped in to something that worked. He was wasting his time with toff jibes and second hand salesman jokes. Yet, quite bizarrely and possibly even uniquely, it could be an economic crisis that saves his job. Brown is making this crisis his Falklands war – and why not? It worked for Thatcher after all.

Why hasn’t Cameron buried Brown by now?
You have to ask why has Cameron, after all that has happened not got a more solid perception and buried Brown? It is difficult to know, but he clearly has not got every right just yet. Look at the current crisis – he is criticising the government for not, effectively, nationalising banks sooner. Yet last November he was massively critical of the government for nationalising Northern Rock. While the Tories do lead the way on some policies (inheritance tax being the obvious example), when it comes to this crisis Labour and Gordon Brown have come across as the more authoritative.

The danger of the Tories
Not only did Labour shade the conferences, but they immediately retook the initiative with the extraordinary cabinet reshuffle last Friday. Yes, it is not only controversial but possibly dangerous to bring back Mandelson, but it also gave the party a kick up backside. There are still no guarantees this move will work, and it is almost unthinkable that the Tories can lose their poll lead – but that is not the danger for them. The danger is if that lead slips in to single figures.

The quirks of first past the post
YouGov put the Tories 14 points ahead of Labour immediately after their conference (i.e. including their bounce). What happens if, as the polls and media are currently suggesting, people do become most trusting of Labour and move away from the “novice” as the crisis gets worse? What if last week’s cabinet reshuffle does provide a boost for the government? What if Labour can cut that lead to, say, eight points with the Conservatives on 40% and Labour on 32%? An easy Tory win you would think, still? No, wrong. A hung parliament.

Then take in to account the usual tightening of the polls come election time. 18 months before the 1997 election Labour led the Tories in the polls by about 20 points. This tightened by about 7 points come election time, or by approximately a third. It is very feasible that if Labour can poll with six per cent of the Tories in a general election they could actually be the largest party in a hung parliament. And to think the Tories are so opposed to proportional representation!

The IF factor
That is to say, if and it is a big IF the public do come out on the side of Labour in this economic crisis, IF the Mandelson gamble pays off, IF the polls do tighten by the next election as they are prone to do, and the biggest IF of all: IF Cameron cannot seal the deal with the electorate, then reports of Labour’s decline could well be grossly exaggerated.

Tories still massive favourites
The Tories must still be massive favourites, but because Cameron has failed to seal the deal with the voters, the game is still on. He still has time to seal it, but every month that passes and he fails to do so opens the door a little more for Labour. The danger for Labour is that is won’t take much more to finish them off; the challenge for the Tories is to do just that: finish off Gordon Brown and the Labour party.

All this just goes to show not only how well Labour has performed over the summer recess, but the time between now and the spring will, in my opinion, decide who wins the next election. This all starts in Glenrothes next month, of course.