There’s a lot of talk in Westminster at the moment about the parallels between now and 1992. Those who think that Brown can win the next election argue that 1992 shows how a governing party can win in a downturn and from behind. But looking at the polling from 1992, which admittedly got the final result rather wrong, shows a slightly different story.
Two of the last three polls before Major named the date of the election had things dead even and the other had Labour ahead by only a single point. The Tories are in a far better position now than Labour was then. If you think that Brown might go in March — the date that I hear bandied around most frequently – then we are four months away from an election. At that point in the 1992 cycle, two polls had Labour ahead by two and one had the government ahead by one. Again, Labour’s position is worse than the Tory one from 17 years ago.
No historical parallel is ever exact but I think that the 1992 to now one is rather flawed for several reasons. First, by getting rid of Thatcher the Tories had already given the country change — I don’t count the Brown replacing Blair because that happened before this crisis kicked off. Second, Kinnock was a drag on his party’s fortunes while Cameron is not: Cameron’s approval rating is plus seven, while – four months before the 1992 election – Kinnock’s was around minus twenty.
P.S. I think we can be pretty sure that the Tories won’t hold their own Sheffield rally. I can’t really imagine Cameron roaring ‘We’re all right, we’re all right’:
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