Ben Brogan’s blog makes available to the punter the kind of lobby corridor gossip which I’d have given my right arm to be privy to when I was a press gallery minnow. He’s one of the best informed in the place – so when he rules out an autumn election, it’s significant. His rationale makes perfect sense to me. Yes, Brown would take some stick for bottling it, but this won’t have much traction outside the Westminster village and the whole affair will be forgotten by Christmas. Plus his aides want to get stuck into the Tory non dom tax proposal (I agree that the figures don’t stack up, not that anyone will care) and there is a hugely emotive (albeit disproven) leftist argument against the Wisconsin-style welfare reform which Cameron is courageously pledging. By unveiling a muscular Tory agenda in Blackpool this week, Cameron has raised a red rag to Brown. And our PM may well postpone the election to give himself more time to charge.
Ben says the Brownies claim the “courageous” thing to do would be to go now. But as Sir Humphrey memorably put it, “Controversial only means this will lose you votes, courageous means this will lose you the election.”
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