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An election could be called within 14 days
TODAY the Daily Mail broke the news that Brown could call an October poll to finish off the Tories.
Are the Conservatives worried? Probably not – after all, they have been campaigning non-stop for an immediate election, and are holding out hope that the public will respond by ousting Brown.
Am I worried? Of course – the election has been pencilled in for October 25 (we even have a date if it will happen) and some target seats haven’t even selected their candidates yet – such as Rochester and Strood.
Meanwhile in Gillingham and Rainham, Labour activists are publicly confidant of a shock win for their sitting MP. However, some think that privately Mr Clark himself is resigned to a loss.
Don’t worry Mr Clark, I’ve heard it’s quite easy to sign on these days.
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Well, the article did say that senior party people puts the odds against this happening as “overwhelming”, and that this notion is probably intended to “rattle” the Conservatives…
The Rochester and Strood situation (my constituency-to-be when the boundary changes take effect) is of concern, especially as it is a seat we can take easily — if anything, slightly more easily than Gillingham and Rainham.
The only relatively tough seat to take in the Medway area is Chatham and Aylesford, but even that looks quite promising, thanks to the excellent and dynamic candidate we have there, Tracey Crouch. Technically, I am still in her constituency, and shall continue to be so until a General Election is called. I am therefore — in the absence of a candidate for Rochester and Strood — helping with her campaign in the meantime.
If an election were to be called for next month, despite all the indications that it won’t, I expect that Brown will still have the largest party group size in the Commons when the results are known. However, he might not have an overall majority; and I suspect that outcome is far more likely than the polls currently suggest.
The mistake in calling the election at the end of Labour Conference is not that it would stop the Conservative Conference going ahead — which I am sure it would — but that it comes after the LibDem Conference. Now, theirs tend to be a lot better and more interesting than the typically lacklustre Labour events, so this timing could tip the Lib/Lab balance, putting another variable into the equation.
No: I think Brown is too shrewd for that, and will realise that not only what I have just written, but also that polls cannot be trusted once an election is called. Experience shows that General Election results often confound the poll merchants, especially if a current lead is only a recent phenomenon — too fluid to be safe to depend upon its continuation.
If I were Brown, I wouldn’t risk losing, whatever the odds, when the alternative is at least a further eighteen months in power with no challenges from within his party (unless something very strange happens!) or without.