Friday, April 03, 2009

Might Brown Go to The Country Now?

This morning I have had three separate journalists ring up wanting to do interviews on the G20. They have all asked the same question: do I think Gordon Brown is more likely to call a snap election.

Do I ****.

I agree with those who think Brown will get a short term bounce from the G20. But I agree with Tim Montgomerie and Peter Hoskin who think it will be pretty short lived. The problem with all the measures announced yesterday is that there isn't a single one of them which will provide any short term relief from the recession - in short, nothing to which an individual voter can relate.

Fraser Nelson writes a perceptive analysis of the measures announced at the G20 and wonders if they are quite what they seem. In short, he agrees with my comment yesterday, that we should read the small print. Always wise with anything which Brown is involved with - especially in light of this retort from Brown, as reported by Events Dear Boy...

Earlier this week Brown was asked how he would judge if the summit was a success. He gave an honest answer for a change:

"For you to report it as a success."

He has achieved his aim.

Alastair Campbell reckons this summit proves that substance wins over style. That comment from Brown would appear to prove otherwise.

PS I will be on BBC Radio Wales ater 4pm talking about all this malarkey - live in their Llandaf studio!



33 comments:

Darren Jones said...

LA,asked a similar question on his blog a few minutes ago, he is however more worried about an election in the Autumn.

LA

DespairingLiberal said...

Where on earth do journalists get these delusions from? Shows what a mad little hothouse of banana-growing the Westminster village truly is. Brown will go on the last possible day that he can legally do so.

Conand said...

LMFAO@Alastair Campbell

And Tim Ireland says Dale has a brassneck! Hahahahaha Joshua of Galilee on a Moto Guzzi!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Bounce? What bounce? Does anyone seriously believe that Joe Bloggs paid a single iota of attention to the G20?

Oldrightie said...

The Brown bounce is in the Labour spin machine's mind. Delusion is their forte, emotional blindness their joy. An election may well be called very soon. This junket and the millions spent was all about borrowing more of our grandchildrens tax to fund todays Labour Party.
The cost of The G20 ought really to be set against Labour's election budget. Oh, no, it can't be, that would be illegal!

Benny said...

not Llandaff? :p

Duncan Stott said...

I wouldn't be surprised if he did, although it is more likely he'll leave it til 2010.

But all Brown is going to get between now and the last possible moments is brief, short-term bounces. Riding these mini-waves could be the difference between a Conservative minority and majority.

My view is that generally the longer he leaves it the bigger the Tory win. But Brown I suspect won't care about this, he'd rather be PM for another year than stop Labour's rot.

Jonny Mac said...

A straw in the wind, but the date of July's Privy Council meeting has not yet been set, and it would normally have been set by now. They normally only hold back from fixing PC dates when an election is a possibility.

Events dear boy, events said...

Glad you are asking the same question as I am. A pity though you did not link to my blog as you did the others.

Iain Dale said...

Oops. An oversight, I can assure you. Will now rectify.

Vulpus_rex said...

Brown doesn't really do elections.

He wouldn't stand for parliament until he sulked his way into a labour shoe in with a massive majority.

He didn't dare face a competition for the labour leadership so bullied and threatened his way into an uncontested "election".

He will only go to the country once he thinks he can win.

When it is apparent that he still can't win in 2010, I wouldn't put it past him to find a reason not to hold an election at all.

Curbishly said...

We at the Conservative Hadleigh and Daws Heath Divisional meeting last night asked the same question.

Bring it on, we said.

TheBoilingFrog said...

Brown won't go to the country for 2 reasons:

Firstly he's scared of not being able to micro-manage anything. He's got form on avoiding elections at all costs

Secondly, he must be aware, as we all are that, what is achieved at G20 will be irrelevant, in comparison to an intense 4 week election campaign.

Every (lying) Brown word will be subject to microscopic scrutiny and up against the more popular Cameron he will lose heavily.

I still remain unconvinced that Brown will lead us into the next election.

Events dear boy, events said...

Iain. Thanks.

Brown could be tempted to go early. As I have said in my blog, Mandy and Campbell have obviously developed a strategy which they are now rolling out.

It will be interesting to see if the polls move and what tactical tricks Brown comes up with in the budget.

Paul Halsall said...

Iain, what do you think happens if something occurs that just jumbles up everything. Like the expected/possible Israeli strike on Iran. People will look for safe hands.

http://englisheclectic.blogspot.com/2009/04/israel-about-to-bomb-iran.html

Victor, NW Kent said...

George Osborne will need to be much quicker on the ball when replying in the Budget Debate.
As always it will be full of meaningless promises, repeat announcements and some dodgy accounting.
When Brown made the idiotic 10P blunder it seemed to pass our Finance spokesmen by almost without comment.
Give Brown the G20 limp bounce and a nearly uncontested Budget fraud and he is well set for an early election and some damage limitation.

Events dear boy, events said...

Iain, One more thing. Will you be able to provide a link to your broadcast. I will be very interested to hear what you have to say, as no doubt will others.

Sue said...

The Queen scolding Berlusconi is getting more press. She will be the new utube sensation.

Evening Standard

Iain Dale said...

You can listen online or on Sky. BBC Radio Wales is on both.

Plato said...

Nope and any bouncelet will be zapped by the next expenses scandal which on the balance of probabilities will be this Sunday.

Not to mention of course the 70+ pix of Mr Brown's best friend that the NOTW happen to have.

Outside the bubble, 95% of non-politicos will have no idea what this was all about but will have seen a lot of Beeboid love-in pictures.

They'll then talk with their friends who are being laid off.

Reality check required me thinks.

Mark Thompson said...

I posted about this too this morning here.

I think the positive response has increased the likelihood a bit, but he would need to go very soon whilst he is still basking. He might not even have time to wait for the post G20 polls as the bounce could easily be over if he waits too long.

For this reason I agree he probably won't go but I think the next few days is his last slot now until his hand is forced next year.

Unknown said...

See this analysis:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a7c27658-1fe5-11de-a1df-00144feabdc0.html

Old Holborn said...

It's a triumph of "doing something not nothing". We're opening up history's largest line of credit ($5 Trillion) to eastern Europe and the Third World. So, the crisis caused by lending money to people who couldn't pay it back is to be solved by lending money to countries that can't pay it back. It'll be fine. We'll write it off, print some more and the people who lent it can get seven-figure bonuses paid into their named and shamed tax havens, whilst our grandchildren pay for it all.

Get me out of here.

Plato said...

Even if he had a secret election strategy up his sleeve and called it this afternoon, he's still toast.

No poll since the start of the year has Tories on less than 40points whilst Labour have moved 28-32 IIRC.

IMHO Cameron needs to get his story straight big time. He was crap on R5 yesterday - vague, got pinned into stating promises he didn't have and giving examples that were unfocused.

Since the Tories are standing right in front of an open goal, I cannot understand what they are playing at.

As first I thought it was a clever move to just let Gordon implode, now I have serious doubts.

If there was a surprise event a la the Falklands - perhaps it would help Brown, but I doubt even that would save him now.

Dick the Prick said...

He get lynched by the troughers, oops, sorry, Labour MPs.

Alex said...

Iain, you and every political commentator and in particular the front becnch of the Conservative Party should be hitting the airwaves telling the world that this £1.1 trillion package is a transparent lie.

There is no new money and most of those at the meeting have no power to commit money despite being heads of state - the one exception, the Saudi King kept is cheque book firmly in his trousers.

All of thsoe "commitments" are either reannouncements or simply agreements to allow various bodies (IMF, multilateral deve,opment baks) to bvorrow more, but there is no commitment to provide any funding, and there is no reason to believe that any of these institutions needed to have their borrowing limits raised.

Brown is a total charlatan, but it speaks volumes about Osborn that he doesn't figure him out.

Johnny Norfolk said...

Labour will leave it to the last possible moement as they are frit.

Newmania said...

No no chance he has been engineeering a demand bubble and he will wait for that.
I wish he would

King Athelstan said...

There is absolutely no chance of that exposing itself to public opinion. If there is a little favourable reporting in the media, sprinkled with a little scepticism, in the real world the questions are, will I get a job? will I lose My job? is my house safe? whats my house worth? what are my savings worth? are the bankers trousering any more money?
In the unlikely event of any positive responses, and with more news of corruption about to go public, no real bounce. Not that this matters It is pathalogically afraid of what an electorate can do to it, and will not go to the country until it is forced to.

Unknown said...

Journalists from all sides of the press seem overly keen to inflate Brown every time he puts on a G20 style orchestrated photoshoot. It looks like election bait to me, designed to lure Brown from his hole on the subject- any hint or anouncement of a date would be a windfall for them.

I can't think of any other explanation for these occasional outbursts of support for a man who is inarguably the least competent, most unpopular and most damaging PM in history.

There is not a shred of substance or serious thought in anything Brown says or does. It is hard to believe that most mainstream journalists are so stupid as to not be aware of this.

OBC News said...

I am bemused that Gordon's performance at the G20 press conference was greeted with so much acclaim. The only thing 'historic' about it was his repeating the word 'global' about 8 times in the first 3 minutes of his speech. Though to be honest, about halfway through I thought 'Call an election today Gordon, it's downhill all the way from here'. But then, I was actually listening to the words he was saying rather than being taken in by the glitz of the event...

Tom said...

I'm sure what Alastair Campbell means is that the style of looking substantial wins over the style of looking stylish...

Anonymous said...

There are plenty of countries I'd like Gordon Brown to go to - as long as he stayed there.