Rattled, hoarse and angry, Gordon Brown did not look a happy man at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. Small wonder: it is only weeks since his clunking fist was pounding the Tories into submission. Now, he has allowed himself to be caricatured as a clucking chicken, as fearful of an election as he is of an EU referendum. ‘How long are we going to have to wait till the past makes way for the future?’ David Cameron asked — and the PM had no convincing reply.
It may be true that Mr Brown’s decision not to go to the country this November will fast fade from public memory, and that the nickname ‘Bottler Brown’ and the jokes about ‘bottle banks’ will not last. But the impression of the Prime Minister as a diminished, hesitant and defensive figure is likely to prove more durable.
Mr Brown’s greatest coup in his first few weeks was to appear new and fresh: in pollsters’ jargon, ‘to be the change’. Yet in the past fortnight his behaviour has been wearyingly familiar, bearing all the trademarks of old New Labour: spin, stunts, evasiveness and outright deceit. In his press conference on Monday, inevitably dominated by his election decision, Mr Brown was asked: ‘Can you say, with your hand on your heart, that the polls had nothing to do with your decision?’ He answered: ‘Yes, I can.’ Yet there, in clear view of the cameras, were the words ‘saw polls’ on his notes. Mr Cameron was quite right to say at PMQs that Mr Brown is ‘treating the British people as fools’.
The PM claims that he decided not to hold an election because he wants to explain his ‘vision’ first. That, of course, is a reason for him to go to the country now.
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