It is personal between Brown and the electorate

David C

I have been saying this (in other terms) for as long as Brown has been Prime Minister.
The man is simply not liked.
There is nothing that Brown can do about this situation because the electorate will not accept him on any other terms than those they have chosen.
As the election approaches, with Brown in charge, people's opinion will harden (because everybody hates being wrong) and Labour will go down to defeat.

Mike, Brighton

It has finally come to this.
The only and last chance Labour have of stemming the electoral tsunami is to dump Brown NOW however bloody it will be.
Put up a grey-beard like Straw as PM alongside a younger model (say Purnell or Milliband) as DPM and heir. Call a snap election (before Cameron and Co. are fully ready and have a thought out set of policies) and campaign on labour's record and tory policies.
They'll lose, but not as badly as they will lose in 2010 on current trajectory.
From Labour's pov they will be better placed to campaign in the 2012/13 election after the inevitable disappointment in a Conservative Government.
However much they need to depose Brown, I don't think they have the balls.
2010 is going to be catastrophic for Labour and it is not beyond credibility that they will be replaced by the LibDems as official opposition by say 2015, or at least it will be a very, very long time before Labour is back in power.

Chuck Unsworth

Yes, a little good-mannered charm and elegance goes a very long way. Brown has neither.

Faceless Bureaucrat

So all Cameron needs to do is to ensure that Labour keep him in post until the next Election. Then again, Harriet Harman might do the trick just as well...

Simon

What I find most interesting is the virtually identical rating for 'means what he says' vs 'says what he thinks people want to hear'.

So for all that Cameron comes across as a 'winner', and Brown as a 'loser', we end up at the conclusion that none of them are actually trustworthy. And that's a bad result for us all.

David C

The problem with replacing Brown leads back to the problem of Labour Party finances.
A 'coup' needs to move seamlessly from deposing Brown to introducing the new boss, to launching a new manifesto, to the start of a GE campaign.

This means having enough backers on board behind a candidate, Right Now to float the GE fight.
Without them, nothing moves.
Can the 'money' agree on Harmon?

Mike: I disagree on one point. If Labour move fast enough, then they might sneak a small majority.

Mike, Brighton

David C: I cannot see any path at the moment where Labour can stay in government. The political narrative and MSM are totally against them.
To sneak a small majority would be the biggest miracle since the parting of the the red sea, and perhaps as difficult.
In a hung parliament the LibDems will side with the Tories as they will find it electorally impossible to support an unpopular minority Labour government.
The one point missing here is money. Labour has none, the unions have lots and want their quid pro quo. In any event they will bankroll a GE, but not now, without electorally toxic concessions from Brown. It all still points in the direction of a 2010 annihilation for Labour. Unless something dramatic happens....

John

Mike: here we go again. The Tories have policies, it's just that people like you refuse to listen.

Straw replacing Brown? What a gift for the Tories that would be! Labour has a year-old PM, but has to get a moth-eaten model out of the wardrobe to cover its nakedness ...

I have been saying for years what a useless loser MacPinnochio is. Nobody listened.

John de Finchley

Anyone who says the Tories have no policies hasn't been paying attention. They have plenty - it is rather Labour whre nobody knows what they stand for any more. Apart from high taxes, rubbish services and a bullying, big state.

Travis Bickle

It's sad that people still swallow this line, repeated by BBC (and John Gaunt) every morning, that apparently David Cameron has no policies.

They then proceed to discuss , for example, variable fuel tax, automatic prison for carrying a knife before trying to shoot such "non-policy" ideas down in flames.

Mike, Brighton

John: Sorry but what are you talking about? People like who refuse to listen? Me?
My apologies if my post mislead but I know the Tories have policies as I contribute to them via a policy forum (I'm a Tory party activist and donor).
My point is that a snap GE will be untimely for Cameron as the policy platform is not fully complete. Give it another year and it will be.
I don't think Labour have any choice other than to replace Brown with someone else.
If not Straw then who - who will minimise Labour's electoral disaster? It's between Straw, Johnson, Hutton or Denham. My call is Straw. But I guess you would describe each as a "moth-eaten model"

Chris SE9

Interesting findings from the voters. But based on what exactly? Only the nonsense they pick up from the same media that sold us Tony Blair. How depressing that everything is showbiz now.

Verity

Straw's face is as malign and conniving as Blair's so I would hope that they would put him up. OTOH, Harriet Harpic would be good for us as she has declared herself the enemy of every white man in Britain.

David C

Mike:
my scenario was what Brown himself envisioned last year.
He would be crowned leader, destabilise Cameron and use the Party Conference to win an election.
Brown chickened out (despite what has been said, I believe that Brown was going for an Autumn election).

Labour needs to move now. A leadership campaign makes things messy but there would be an enormous boost to a sinking party simply by cutting the rope with Brown. The added bonus would be the return of some of the individual donors.
A summer leadership campaign would help organise the 'grass roots' into some sort of shape and prime them for a GE.
Everything thereafter relies on maintaining momentum and this time the Conservatives are not going to crumble.
I am of the opinion, with a resurgent Labour Party, a compliant media worshipping at the feet of novelty (that's the BBC, Grauniad and the Med-dependent), Labour has an outside chance of a narrow majority (admittedly so narrow as to be useless, but Brown must suffer the torments of hell after spurning the GE poll projections last year)

The only thing is speed.
Brown has to be knifed almost as he steps off the plane from Japan. If Labour leave things until the conference it will be too late. Any moves will be played out with the Conservatives visibly setting the agenda.

Mike, Brighton

David C. You are absolutely right. This is the key moment politically for maybe the next decade. If labour want to survive and have a political role in this country they need to move against Brown now. Right now. In two months it will be too late. If not Cameron will be PM for a decade or more.
Unfortunately MPs are about to go on holiday so the chances are slim. "Labour loses next election because MPs couldn't be arsed. "It was all too difficult" said Grey Suit MP for somewhere up north. "After all I'd booked my holiday in Tenerife"."
I'd go further than knifing him when he's getting off the plane, they need to tell him to go now and not come back from Japan. Apart from murmurings from Blears and tentative manoeuvres from Harman there is a deafening silence about the labour party......

Tel, Spain

Your headline is absolutely spot on. It's now a case of the people V Brown, and there can be only one winner, the people! Prolonging the General for another two years is going to result in the massacre inflicted on Labour being that much bloodier. Think Major in 1997.

Laura

It's a good job the Labour party haven't the bottle to dump Brown. He is the Tories biggest assest.

Carol- Ann

Major must get very annoyed at the constant comparisons between him and Brown. At every point Major was always more popular than his party- FACT. Major actually won a General Election and received 14 million votes, one of the highest ever- FACT. None of which Brown will ever achieve.

Jon

Marr put it brilliantly to Milliband, a couple of weeks ago on his show when he said: 'Led by Brown, you are heading for the mother and father of all defeats at the next general election.'

Wilfred

We shouldn't underestimate people's dislike of New Labour in general. Brown may be a useful target for the voters' hatred, but it is the whole nasty edifice behind him that REALLY stinks.

John de Finchley

Major did the right thing by holding on till 1997, not in terms of his own prospects of winning but in terms of the future comparisons between Conservative versus Labour rule that he bequeathed.

He left them an economy growing at 2.5% per year with stable and realistic house prices and interest rates, well-funded pensions, low unemployment, and a decent savings ratio. If he had quit or collapsed in '93 or '94, all the good things he set in train would have come to fruition on Labour's watch and they'd have stolen the credit.

That is of course what they have tried to do, but it is now abundantly clear to all but the most dishonest Labour voter that the only reason Labour has managed to last 11 years is because of the prosperity they inherited from Major. They've taken 11 years to squander it and they've been rumbled.

Broon's arrogance and stupidity are painting him into the opposite corner to Major. He'll hold on until 2010 not for the future good of his party but for reasons of personal selfishness. He can't bear being exposed as a failure, and imagines that something will turn up to save him.

Instead, what will happen is that we'll be arse-deep in utter financial, fiscal, economic and social chaos by then, because it'll all be two years worse. The Conservatives will be able to compare their performance after 2010 with the mess Broon is leaving, and of course the non-economic stuff (corruption, and the assault on liberty, notably) will damn Labour probably for ever.

The Tories will be in for 20 to 25 years. For Labour to ever get back, they will need to reinvent themselves as a party something akin to Thatcher's Tories in about 1987. That is how far right the centre ground will move between now and 2030.