The new Populus poll shows that 74 percent of the electorate thinks Gordon Brown is a bad Prime Minister. As Peter Riddell—not a man prone to over-statement—writes in The Times today, “The public have given up on Gordon Brown.”
This is, obviously, in one sense great news for the Tories. Running against an incumbent who is a busted flush during a recession is about as good as it gets for an opposition. But the extent of Brown’s unpopularity should cause the Tories the odd nervous moment.
Imagine for a second if Labour did get its act together and dump Brown. All of a sudden the 67 percent of voters who think it’s time for a change would have been offered something. The new Labour leader could try and present himself, or herself, as the change. (In this respect, the limited name recognition of most of Brown’s possible successors is actually a plus point.)
To guard against this, the Tories need to make sure that they genuinely ‘own change’. As Obama is finding, an aroma of change can be overpowered quite quickly. As I say in the magazine this week, the Tories need to do what Obama failed to do: offer a radical, concrete agenda for change that the other side can’t trump with a change in personnel.
To be fair, the Tories have made some progress on this front. The Tories’ school policy could transform education for the better in this country and produce a new tranche of Tory voters in the same way that the right to buy did. The Tories also have firm ideas about what they want do with welfare and family policy. But beyond that the cupboard is rather bare. Even David Cameron admits that the party is “not there yet” on health and on the economy the Tories seem to still be adjusting to the new economic realities. Elsewhere, the party is being held back by its reluctance to make any spending commitments for fear of Labour attacking them for making ‘unfunded’ pledges. As Danny Finkelstein argued the other day, the Tories should not be constrained by this bogus debate.
The Tories will head to Birmingham in good heart and rightly so, they have had a quite remarkable twelve months. But the Tories should constantly ask themselves not how they plan to beat Brown’s discredited and tired ministry but how they would combat a reinvigorated Labour party under a dynamic new leader. That’s the real test of whether the Cameron poll lead is built to last.
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