All bets are off

30 June 2007

Fraser Nelson says that the new Prime Minister has positioned himself in territory that the Tories have left vacant, and is ready to fight a cultural battle to defend the ‘British way of life’ and win over the C1 voters who decide elections

We will almost certainly see more outsiders brought in to help the new Prime Minister. In the Treasury, Mr Brown relied heavily on industry experts to conduct reviews. He understood that the public is more likely to believe a message coming from an outsider. He will soon start to clock up friendly endorsements from the likes of Sir Alan Greenspan and has already lapped up praise from Hollywood actresses like Angelina Jolie. He may lack Mr Cameron’s personal glitz, but he can ‘out-source’ that particular problem. His friends in the US Democratic party have a list of rent-an-endorsement celebrities who may fly over to Britain and utter supportive words. Ben Affleck, Sheryl Crow and even Martin Sheen, who played the mythic President Bartlet in The West Wing (a New Labour ur-text), have all been mentioned as potentials to offer mwah-mwah kisses to Mr Brown for the ‘progressive’ cause once the general election arrives.

When will that happen? Mr Brown tantalised Westminster by announcing on Sunday that Douglas Alexander would be his election co-ordinator, thus putting his activists on an immediate war footing. Even so, the Labour party’s accounts suggest it could not afford an election for some time. It is some £40 million in debt, whereas the Conservatives have celebrated a return to the black after banking the proceeds of the sale of their Smith Square headquarters. The City remains defiantly ungrateful to Mr Brown — crediting American mistakes for London’s good fortune — and is more persuaded by Mr Osborne than the chap who only now admits he should dress properly for the Mansion House dinner.

But, like so much else, this could quickly change. ‘If it looks like Labour will win the election, the money will quickly come flooding back to Brown,’ says one Tory MP glumly. There is talk of Mr Brown having lined up major million-pound-plus donors, who won’t declare until Mr Blair had gone and the loans-for-honours investigation closed. Whatever his true intentions, Mr Brown wants the Tories to be on alert for a snap election — not least because the new uncertainty has thrown their policy commissions into panicked disarray.

British politics has reached a genuine turning point. Since he became leader, Mr Cameron has been able to sit back and let Mr Blair and Mr Brown tear each other apart. He must now settle down to a long game of guerrilla political warfare with the most ruthless fighter in Westminster. The election may come as early as next summer, or as late as 2010. But the battle for Middle England starts now.