Twenty-six points behind in the polls, personal approval ratings of minus fifty-five percent and ex-Cabinet colleagues calling you "annoying, bewildering and prickly". Things really couldn't get much worse for Gordon Brown.
The danger for Labour is that, no matter how many times they shuffle the pack, voters want change above anything else - the that-lot-couldn't-be-any-worse-than-this-lot mentality which saw Middle England temporarily defect to Labour in droves in 1997. While ministers talk of landing blows on the Tories, there's some evidence to suggest the public have already seen through David Cameron - and prefer him to Brown nonetheless.
The next big barometer will be in Crewe and Nantwich, where Tamsin Dunwoody defends her mother's 7,000 majority against the millionaire heir to Timpson's Shoes. If the Tories win there (and they're odds-on favourites, with Labour's toff jibes falling flat and Dunwoody tarred as a Brown loyalist), Number 10 can start packing up their boxes and preparing for Opposition.
No comments:
Post a Comment