How bad is it for Brown?
James Forsyth 8:47am
Jackie Ashley is one of the columnists who is normally most sympathetic to Gordon Brown. So her take on the issue of how much trouble the Prime Minister is in is essential reading. Here’s how she starts, “After days of talking to a wide range of ministers, Labour backbenchers and veteran party figures, my first conclusion is that, yes, this is very bad indeed. It is not just a few rabidly anti-Gordon Brown columnists getting in a lather. It's more than a passing, soon-to-be-forgotten lurch in the opinion polls. Though there has been no great national disaster of the Black Wednesday kind, the past fortnight has been a big enough government crisis to sink Brown and Labour at the next election, even in 18 months' time.
For the past few days there has been an air of drift and desperation. The prime minister seems hurt and surprised rather than roused and up for it. Once utterly loyal Brownite backbenchers, senior ones, tell me they don't expect him to fight the next election. Blairites who kept their mouths zipped through the first months are plotting again to replace him.” Ashley goes on to argue that if Gordon would just have the courage to be the leader he could be, the one who was so popular over the summer, then all would be well again. Whether that’s correct is debatable, but one thing that Ashley is definitely right about is that the Tories have not yet moved into an unassailable lead. Brown is battered but not yet beaten.
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John Backhouse
November 26th, 2007 11:18am Report this commentIt will take time for the Tories to build a good lead, surely. It took Blair a time and it will take Cameron perhaps longer. Why longer? Because the BBC are doing all they can to minimise the scale of the problems el Gordo faces. In fact, with their sympathetic interviewing etc they could be said to be actively helping him. I can't see them prevailing and thereby keeping their man in power for much longer but they won't give up without a fight - they've promoted him ruthlessly for more than a decade after all.
Nicholas Millman
November 26th, 2007 1:05pm Report this commentI don't see evidence of that with Andrew Neil's coverage on the BBC. If anything that team's approach reflects much of The Spectator sentiment in vigorously exposing and challenging Brown's dodgy government. John Humphreys certainly appears to have a cosy and less than professional relationship with Jack Straw - to the point that they seem to be in cahoots in presenting Brownite spin. BBC news coverage regularly employs subliminal tricks to convey a pro-labour message. Watch the still images behind the newscasters. If the story is about Brown attacking Cameron the photograph is of Brown, if vice versa the photograph is still Brown. The Lefties in the media have spent decades perfecting the sinister arts of subversion and propaganda. Old habits die hard. They are now almost as out of touch with mainstream public opinion as this wretched government. And am I the only one irritated by Crick's red ties and scarves?
Oscar Miller
November 26th, 2007 4:10pm Report this commentAndrew Neil is an honourable exception, but most of the BBC are just as Nicholas Millman describes - highly skilled in the black arts of nulab spin and manipulation. I do think Cameron will slowly pull ahead and win the next election, but there'll be no return to the massive, spin fuelled majorities polled by Labour in the 1990s when the Campbell, Mandelson, Brown machine was all powerful.
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