Could Cameron have survived an autumn election?

Simon

Another first for the Spectator. Sir Michael White has more confidence in Dave's ability than the political ed of The Spec! Brown would have had nothing to say during the election. After 3 weeks of seeing Brown on TV everyday Dave would have narrowed the gap with Labour won some LibDems seats and lived to fight again. The story of 2007 is how you and James underestimate Dave time after time.

Ted

Fraser,
You , like many right wing/Tory commentators still don't get it - Brown wouldn't have won an election other than as largest party. The reversal of the polls from 13% ahead to evens in a week (Weds-Weds) shows the eagerness of many for an alternative, Cameron showed he was capable of providing this - a three week election campaign wouldn't have changed that. The Brown Bounce was a fragile thing born of "thank God Blair's gone" and the summer silly season. Cameron would most certainly have delivered the 1.5% swing to rob Labour of a majority.

Perhaps right wing commentators only see their sides weaknesses but I was amazed how they worried about whether the sums on non-doms added up while Brown was offering £39 billion in unfunded promises - cutting IHT with no additional tax income would be less than a few months of Mr Brown's un-forecast borrowing.

Ray

I always considered all Labour's pre-election-that-never-was blather about "annihilating the Tories for all time" to be the height of conceit. To suppose that they could obliterate a party that even in the depths of its pre-millennial unpopularity still attracted the support of a third of the electorate demonstrated hubris on a scale not witnessed since the late 1980s, when Conservative supporters were mumbling similar sentiments about Labour under Neil Kinnock.

Anan

3) The Bowser Brown can be blamed completely for wrecking the economy - root cause of every single problem we have now, in banking, employment and even health and education.

Seems to me like whenever you get the chance, you are more than ready to bash Cameron. You seem to have some massive complex, and an obsession against Dave. Are you jealous that he could be prime minister? Are you jealous of him simply being Leader of the opposition? Why do you all at the spectator and other "conservative/rightwing" websites/publications hate Cameron so much?

Your "theory" is flawed. Even one of the SkyNews reporters was saying on the day that would have been election day, that after all the problems for Bowser Brown over the preceeding few weeks it would have been madness to have called an election. Even with all the cover-ups carried out by the media, and the labour allies in the telegraph, spectator, and other so-called "right wing" publications, there would have been a hung parliament, not a labour landslide.

Political destruction indeed! Wishful thinking, once again showing your true colours Fraser. Why not have the decency to just openly say that you dont like Cameron or the Conservatives, instead of playing a game of deceit and trying to bring down the Conservatives by a 1000 back-stabs.

I'm actually suprised that you didn't appear to have spoken about rifts in the party. I can just imagine it: "... and I also brought up the important point that because the election was cancelled there was no chance for the gradually growing rift between Cameron and Osbourne over foreign policy to be exposed due to the intense media-scrutiny of an election campaign, in which their feigned attempts at appearing united would have been thoroughly defeated! I felt this was an important issue for all Conservatives to address as ... blah blah blah ... it would have further added to Cameron's no doubt eventual Thatcher-esque fall!"

My how desperate you people are to see the end of Cameron - pathetic really.

Buckinghamshire Tory

We probably wouldn't have won that election, although it could have happened. Nobody expected Ted Heath to pull of the 1970 General Election remember. The Tory Party would probably increased it's share of MPs (maybe even enough for a Hung Parliament), but a workable majority would most likely been out of our reach. Brown prbably didn't bottle the election because he thought he was going to loose, but rather because the Labour majority would be reduced. He woulkd have to worry about every single Backbench-Rebellion, and would eventually be a new John Major (bbut without the good record on economics).

fnusnuank

You sure your questions aren't for Sun readers? Brown wouldn't have won because events would have overtaken him during the election. Public Sector reform? What 900,000 new public sector jobs and God knows how many positions created in Quangos, some reform. Public funding for any of that bunch? You must be mad, you want to give those lying, corrupt hypocrites a licence to steal even more from the taxpayer, God help us. Finally, can we blame snot face for NR? The Tripartite System? Turning down Lloyds? bunging them, what £50? £100,000,000,000? No, of course not, he's a blimmin' financial genius.

Huw Thornton

Interesting questions, Fraser. My hunch is that Gordon Brown would still have been more likely to win an election, but I wouldn't have bet my shirt on it - the vital factor is the sheer volatility of voting intentions. This remains the case and makes predictions difficult. I love the idea about nationalisation of political parties. Would they be given official output targets? As for Northern Rock, I know that it's unfashionable to say so, but blame should really be allocated to individuals' own borrowing habits, to bankers' traditional lemming habits and to the international financial system and its periodic instabilities. To the extent that GB has a role in any of this, he is indeed culpable. I suppose also that no-one should be allowed to claim credit for good results in the economy, whilst ducking responsibility for the crises. More crucially, I think that it would have been difficult to pin specific blame on GB for Northern Rock during an election campaign in a way which would stick.

Alex R

On number 3: Brown was the one who designed and implemented the tripartite system of financial regulation and probably for no other good reason than he didn't like Sir Eddie George and wanted to limit the power of the Bank of England. Brown was also the person, I believe, who signed off on the compensation system that lead to the run on Northern Rock. And if he didn't, he did nothing to change it. (Inaction over 10 years is perhaps just as in excusable). Perhaps Brown doesn't have savings - given his PM's pension entitlement, he probably doesn't need them - but I doubt it. How could he then not see that protection for savings up to a maximum of £35,000 would never be sufficient if concerns were raised over the viability of a bank? Why did he not take note of much more generous and fast acting system in the USA? Why also did he not act sooner when the cues started to form? Did he really believe that a "trust us" message from Alastair Darling (remember he went AWOL again) would be enough for everyone to go home given the previous broken promises on pensions and the like? Brown designed the system it failed. Brown failed to act quickly enough to prevent the situation getting worse. Brown bears a lot of responsibility for the collapse of Northern Rock.

Oscar Miller

Agree with both Simon and Ted. Fraser has gravely under estimated DC. His achievement was not just 'Etonian' bravado (how condescending is that?). The triumph of DC and his team, notably George Osborne, was to reverse the momentum of the polls in one of the most dramatic turn arounds in recent British politics. Brown bottled the election not because he thought he would lose (I actually think he was being honest when he said he thought he'd win) but because he was on course for a seriously reduced majority. Which would make the whole plan to have an early election look ridiculous and show Brown up for the plonker he is while making Dave look like a clever strategist. DC would have no need to resign in such circumstances. Brown and his band of merry adolescents wanted an early election to "seal the deal" - ie to sabotage the Conservative conference, going on to wipe them out for a generation or more by achieving 100+ seats at a GE. In fact this gambit blew up in their faces and they succeeded in reviving Tory fortunes not burying them. It was a disastrous stunt and GB got a wholly justified come uppance. He managed to create a lose lose situation for himself - going or not going to the polls were both going to be grim for him.

Giovanni

A lot would have depended on the size of a Labour victory, IMO. Given that the poll numbers throughout the summer had always been soft and considering that the Tories had had a strong victory in the local elections, had Cameron managed to reduce Brown's majority significatnly, as in 30 MPs or less, and had he managed to pick up some 50/60 seats alng the way, then he could have had a chance to remain as leader. Otherwise, Conservative leader David Davis would now be trying to convince Tory Mps and activists to step back from the ledge and maybe put those pills back in the drawer.

J Kenn

Labour would have won, but with a greatly reduced majority. That is what Brown's polls were telling him, and that is obviously why he bottled it. Cameron would have lost well, gaining enough votes/seats to keep people like you from throwing him out. I have to agree with other comments, I find your blatant dislike for Cameron irritating in the extreme,bearing in mind you represent a more right wing publication, and your comment with regard to Eton was puerile.

Max Kaye

Brown would of lost (which is not to say that Cameron would have 'won').

Fraser, I think you're seriously underestimating Cameron. Brown made that mistake - look at him now. I predict you'll need to eat lots of humble pie.

Your other questions:

1. Brown's not going anywhere - he's meandering.

2. Not one penny of taxpayers money.

3. Brown put all the dominos in position. He can't shirk blame when they start tumbling.

Andrew Lilico

Whether Brown would have won an Autumn election is unclear, but Cameron would have survived even a landslide Brown victory. There was zero appetite in the Conservative Party for another leadership election.

Matt

I think an Autumn election would have been close. Enough people are not happy to mean things have changed. Add to this that the Govt is tired and the more Brown would have appeared on the TV the worse it would have got, while Cameron would have done better with the extra air time. Finally as others say, whatever the chattering, there is no appetite or logic in another leadership election. Also the thing that makes more people like Cameron is he shows mettle - he keeps going and isn't put off by Labour.

ben

Oscar at 421pm Listen-Bean bottled it as he was very aware that he would have lost his seat to the SNP(as his private polls had predicted) He probably thought that,( like many of us,) his party would have scraped a victory, but it was his own precarious position which forced his decision against an election. End of story!

Fergus Pickering

Where did YOU go to school, young Fraser?

TGF UKIP

Wow! The Dave fan club really is out in force only my mate Tiberius appears to be missing. Mind you Tiberius, considered as always, wouldn't have beeen so injudicious as to level the degree of invective being directed against you and The Speccie in some of the comments above. As someone who really does loathe Cameron as a SocDem who conned his way to the Tory crown, I can vouchsafe for your frequent public defence of Cameron from attacks by people like myself. Moreover, many of the Daveists when attacking The Speccie appear to have forgotten that the Dear Editor is one of Dave's principal media cheerleaders and played a major role in the London media putsch that propelled Cameron to the leadership two years ago. So far as the present politics of it is concerned, the Daveists also appear to have convenient amnesia and forget that at the end of September the Tories were still at 32% in the polls, exactly where they had been under Hague, Duncan Smith and Howard -so much for the Dave Miracle. What then happened was not "The Speech" (only us anoraks even knew there was a conference on let alone be aware of Dave's so called wow factor) what really happened was that Gordon started to self-destruct. Where I disagreed with you and your fellows this morning was the exact timing of the start of ignition. For me it wasn't the end of the following week when Andrew Marr announced there wasn't going to be an election, it was right in the middle of the Tory Conference when Gordon bobbed up in Iraq spinning and lying on troop withdrawals. That was so stupid it really did have Blinky's fingerprints all over it. The Tories did get traction from their IHT pledge but instead of having any conservative convictions and declaring that they would pay for that and other tax cuts by slicing two or three per cent off the £615 billion of public spending planned for 2008, they produced the non-dom formula which Labour would have easily shredded and skewered the Tories with throughout an election campaign. But Gordon bottled and is now getting what he deserves. Had he gone to the country then I agree that he would have won but with a majority of much the same or slightly fewer. The Tories would have picked up some seats, mainly from the LibDems, but almost exclusively in the South, demonstrating that if the Tories do have any ambitions to be even an English national party again, a leader other than Dave would be required. As it is, as you pointed out their current 11-13% lead contrasts with Labour's 25% back in the nineties. And that's what the Daveists don't get - there's still no real appetite for the Dave Tory SocDems just a dislike for Brownite Labour. In other words the game is still as much in Labour hands as in Tory ones.

steve_roberts

About the election, Brown had the opportunity to take a risk on getting a mandate but drew back. Cameron stuck his neck out for an election, even though the odds were against. In politics you have to take your chances when they come up, whether they are good odds or just so-so, and although Cameron took the bigger risk it was a good decision, just as Brown's was a bad decision. As to your questions: 1. Blair's 'public sector reform' was pretty much a Potemkin village. Brown, unfettered, has turned it into a cargo cult. 2. State funding of the parties would be a crime against the taxpayer. Far from making the Labour and Conservative parties disappear, it would entrench their stranglehold on the nations neck. The parties are actually part of the problem, weakening them is part of the solution. 3. Brown can be blamed for Northern rock all the way. He changed the regulatory system against advice, and whereas the old system worked on several occasions, his system fell at the first hurdle.

judy from the north

there was an atmosphere at the party conference that we were at last ready for government in terms of cabinet government.In the north there was a voice for change it would have been ahung parliament.However the scene is set for better now we believe Cameron is the one get behind him we need a conservative Britain

judy from the north

there was an atmosphere at the party conference that we were at last ready for government in terms of cabinet government.In the north there was a voice for change it would have been ahung parliament.However the scene is set for better now we believe Cameron is the one get behind him we need a conservative Britain

Buckinghamshire Tory

It should be obvious to everyone that reads the Spectator on a regular basis that Fraser Nelson isn't especially hostile or negative towards David Cameron, or the Tory Party. Fraser gives praise where praise is due. The radical welfare reform David Cameron has promised is one example. Another is the way he covered the Tory Party Conference earlier this year. However, that doesn't mean that Fraser Nelson embraces everything David Cameron says and does. He is supposed to be journalist after all. Neither the Spectator, the Tory Party or David Cameron would benefit from Fraser Nelson being some "yes-man".

Stan, UK

Fraser do you think Cameron is the right leader for the Conservatives? If the answer is no, is it because he went to Eton or because he is not up to the job? Would like to know because you do seem to have a real downer on him.

Maggie Thatcher Fan

I always take what Fraser says with a large piece of salt. He is entitled to his view, but it doesn't mean I'm going to pay any attention to it. In fact I largely ignore it... Rock on DC

Fraser Nelson

Buckinghamshire Tory, thanks for your kind defence. But it seems I’m up against a wall of opposition here. At the risk of yet another kicking here’s why I think all this matters. History is rapidly rewritten in politics. It doesn’t take much time for the likely to be written up as the inevitable – but failure to recognise the lessons of October will condemn the Tories to repeat its nauseating rollercoaster ride. You don’t have to wish Cameron ill to say he was poised to lose the cancelled November election. Consider the mechanics. Unfairly, Cameron needed (at least) eight point lead. His bounce from a (v successful) conference put him on evens. We never saw what Brown had up his sleeve for that campaign. And events? Fnusnuan, I suspect a lot of the bad news just wouldn’t have seeped out. It would be a brave civil servant who reported any data loss during that campaign. The Abrahams fiasco would have come after the election and we'd have Brown till 2012 rather than 2010. Ted, you’re right – Brown’s figures don’t stack up well. But they didn’t in 01 and 05 and he still got away with it and (if I dare say so) the Tories have not yet taken away his credibility on such issues. They may do so in 2008. As Simon and Huw say, Brown’s TV exposure would have weakened him and party loyalties have never been weaker, making the whole thing hugely unpredictable. But I (and several Cameron loyalists) fear he was heading for glorious failure. Unlike Brown, he’s no political monomaniac so he’d probably have quit. It’s cruel and unfair, but true: no one in modern British politics loses an election then go on to win one. Ask Neil Kinnock. Where a few of you get me wrong is imagining I take some kind of sadistic pleasure in this prediction. I believe Cameron’s resignation would have been a calamity for the Tories. And Stan, yes I do think Cameron is emphatically the right leader (sorry TGI UKIP). His embrace of radical welfare and school reform is the most courageous and impressive a agenda from any Tory leader since Thatcher – with the potential to genuinely transform Britain more than she did. Emphasis on the “could”. And here Ted has a point: perhaps it is these high expectations of Cameron which lead many on the right to be harder critics of him. Where I simply can’t agree is that critical appraisal – in the blog or the magazine - is indicative of some personal vendetta or (even worse) is the right somehow being disloyal. That's not how The Spectator works, and never had been. The Spectator’s motto is "firm but unfair" and only loyalty is to our readers. We wouldn’t help them – or anyone else - by becoming a Cameron fanzine. We praise him where we agree with him (welfare and school reform) and attack him where we don’t (grammar schools, hug-a-hoodie etc). This is the approach we’ve taken pretty much since 1828. Sure, it attracts heated counter-arguments in CoffeeHouse. And that’s how we like it. Anyway, I consider Blackpool a triumph – but still consider it recovery from a near-death experience. The Spectator on the week of the Tory conference had a cartoon of Cameron on horseback, hands bound and neck in a noose with the title “now get out of that”. A touch macabre, perhaps, but I believed then and believe now that it was a fair reflection of his predicament.

Simon

Here is a question for you Fraser. Fraser Nelson in 2008. The poor man's Simon Heffer or a potential rival for Matthew Parris? What's it going to be?

Matthew

Fraser, if these people think you're anti-Cameron they obviously dont read this blog or the magazine. Why do you waste your time responding to them?

Tiberius

TGF: I was preparing a house party yesterday afternoon, otherwise I would have joined this debate earlier. On Cameron's election as leader, Boris was still Speccie editor when it came out for Cameron. And Fraser has satisfactorily answered all the questions now. As far as I am concerned, the Speccie tells it as it is - you will not and should not expect total agreement on the liberal Right on all issues. We are not mindless Stalinists or Maoists. On the election, the outcome would have been impossible to predict - Cameron could have won. But I don't think he would have been finished if he'd lost. I do think (unlike Fraser) that he could have come back to win next time. As for the hot topic no 3), Brown is responsible for NR, just as John Major is responsible for Black Wednesday, because the respective events happened on their watch - that's politics, and even the uber-duplicity of our Great Leader can't spin him out of this one.

Ted

Fraser
Thanks for your comments. Wasn't intending it to sound like an attack on you personally but questioning your take on the events.

I wasn't saying the Tories would have won but that neither would Brown. He would almost certainly have led Labour as largest party after an election, just doubt he'd have achieved a majority.

I disagree though on Cameron. I and many Conservatives I know did not expect the Party to manage a landslide type recovery of vote share from 32% to 42% in one election. I don't think Cameron and most shadow ministers did either. Taking away Labour's majority and putting them in a 1974-79 situation again was a realistic and achievable target. Cameron would have survived with probably a 30+ seat gain from Labour.

Then Brown, weakened by throwing away a perfectly respectable majority, would have been hit by the "events" - question would be now will he survive? will the minority government survive?

Problem for Cameron now is that after polling 45% in one poll with Labour in low 30's expectation of a majority at next election has become fixed in supporters minds. He needs to achieve a near record swing to survive the next election.

Louis

By the way, Fraser, I read in the News of the World today that you became a father yesterday - presumably between your first post and your response above. Congratulations!

TGF UKIP

Tiberius, I trust the party went well but that you managed to persuade non of the attendees to the Daveist cause. I was fully aware that Clinton -lover Boris was editor at the time but Matthew from his then lofty perch at The Sunday Telegraph (as I recall) was part of the cabal along with The Brute and sundry others in the media of whose identity I am not entirely sure. The full story of the nexus between Dave's Notting Hill gang and the Tory London media, particularly its posher parts, hasn't yet been fully told. The ambush on DD at the Conference and the subsequent heist of the Tory Party over the ensuing months will make a fascinating and machiavellian tale and no doubt one of the participants will someday make a few bob for his pension by writing up the story. Suffice it to say that a Tory Party that would never in a month of sundays have elected SocDem Clarke ended up ended up by electing even more of a SocDem in Cameron. Sometimes, and that was one of them, the Tory Party really does live up to its sobriquet of The Stupid Party.

Stewart

I agree with Fraser that Labour would have won a November poll but I'm not sure that Cameron was bluffing. His Eton fearlessness could just as well have been self delusion or over confidence that his time had come (It still might) and that he was being given a political gift by a man who hates him with a fiery passion. The Conservatives would probably have halved Labour's majority with most of the gains coming from (long overdue) boundary commission changes and some pick ups from the lib dems who were at a nadir. Nevertheless we would now be looking at a Brown led Labour government until just before the Olympics (June 2012probably). Thankfully the election never was. However I think 2008 will be a frustrating year for both Labour and Conservatives. Labour will suffer from the predicted economic slowdown and no doubt continued civil service/bureaucratic incompetence whilst the Conservatives may become impatient if the May election results aren't as good as they would like and Boris fails to oust Livingstone in London. The predicted slow lib dem revival under Clegg will also see them picking up polling points at the expense of both parties. Events aside it will be a long slog of a year for Brown and Cameron.

RedEye

There might be a third volume of Politico's counter-factuals, so if anyone has 4,000 words on this particular counter-factual (or, indeed, any not already covered in Prime Minister Portillo or President Gore), feel free to e-mail Duncan Brack at duncan@dbrack.org.uk

Praguetory

This counter-factual is an interesting one, but I am more fascinated by the kicking Fraser is getting for his intepretation of events. Open and honest debate is one of the more appealing aspects of the Right in British politics. Attempts to characterise Fraser as a swivel-eyed anti-Cameroon are ridiculous. Play the ball, chaps.

John Ionides

I think that Cameron would have more than survived an Autumn election. I am less certain whether he would have ended up with a majority. Cameron's huge advantage, it seems to me, is that people - and by this I mean the average punter, not Westminster journos - can envisage being lead by him whereas GB lives aloof. Once you take into account that Cameron has a strong track record of rising to the occasion whereas Brown does not, I am convinced that, if forced to choose, there would have been a significant swing to Cameron. As for the questions. 1: clearly he is rolling a lot of the reform back. 2: State funding of political parties does not seem like a sensible idea to me. There is only a tenuous link between the political class and the general population at the moment and it would erode this further if parties were not to rely on supporters for funding. 3: Quite a lot, both in terms of setting up the regulatory structure and for dithering as the scale of the problems started to become apparent.