Everything left to play for
James Forsyth 11:54am
Today’s poll in The Times shows how much in flux British politics still is. A Tory optimist looking at it might rejoice that the party has breached 40 percent for the first time in a Populus poll. On the other hand, a pessimist might wonder why the party isn’t at 45 percent, the level at which support becomes almost self-sustaining, considering the number of rounds the government has discharged into its foot in recent weeks. Equally, a Labour backer inclined to see the glass as half full will be heartened to see that even after a disastrous few weeks, Labour remains above 30 percent and in sight of the Tories. While, someone looking at the glass as half empty would worry that Labour is down where it was at the fag-end of the Blair-era and with no recipe for recovery.
For Cameron, the challenge is to emerge as a Prime Minister in waiting. There are still areas of policy where he sounds a little too unsure for a potential PM. For instance, he sounded nervous and hesitant when talking about the housing market on the Today Programme this morning, only hitting his stride when asked about nationalising Northern Rock. As Tony Blair might say to him, a lot done, a lot left to do.
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Comments
Richard Havers
December 11th, 2007 4:20pmIt'll be Scotland that is Labour's undoing. It could go into meltdown up here and that coupled with a resurgent Tory party will effectively squeeze them out.
Tiberius
December 11th, 2007 4:34pmPerhaps Cameron cannot hit 45% because Labour has a larger hard core of voters. This would account for Blair's huge majorities (as previous Tory voters were prepared to switch sides) and for the Tories present polling despite the meltdown of Brown's government. After all, Mrs Thatcher didn't achieve majorities on the Blair scale, and today Cameron also has to deal with post-devolution Britain, a settlement that has played a large part in wiping out the Tories in Scotland. Then there is the effect of the much vaunted Brown client state. With the constituency boundaries also still skewed to give Labour a natural advantage, we should perhaps get used to 42% being somwhere near the Tories' best showing, with a majority of 30 -40 seats the best expectation.
TGF UKIP
December 11th, 2007 6:00pmThere is strikingly little enthusiasm for the Tories as a mere 40% demonstrates.With the chaos this government's in, they should be miles ahead as Labour were over the Major Government back in the nineties. The two differences are a) Labour were a ferocious, professional, focussed Opposition with a brilliant team at the top (Blair, Brown, Mandelson and Campbell) and b) The Tories can't really go on a policy offensive that's going to garner real enthusiasm because there is no real substantive difference between the parties. The most common reaction of the man in the street to politics is "they're all the same" and guess what, this time around the man in the street is dead right.
Oscar Miller
December 11th, 2007 7:31pmAgree with Tiberius. And it's worth remembering that in the summer Tories at 40% and Labour at 32% would have seemed like pure fantasy. But now the media push the envelope and complain Cameron isn't at 45%. There will be no return to the massive swings to Labour of the 1990s. The extraordinary convergence of support for Labour and their unprecedented spin machine against the Tories is over - and good riddance to it. The Conservatives will fight for every vote at the next election in a climate of utter disillusion and cynicism with politicians. That's nulab's true legacy. It will be a long hard slog to recover the trust of the public and win them round to the Conservatives. But team Cameron will do it.
Scary
December 11th, 2007 7:40pmWith 2 years still to go 40:30% is champagne popping territory. If Gordon transforms the government of this country AND there's no recession, he stands a chance of gaining back some of that 10%. But it's a big ask. Much more likely seems a slow agonising death that will make the Tories' fate over the last 10 years look merciful.