The fundamentals still favour Cameron

The financial crisis might be giving Gordon Brown a temporary boost but when you consider the issues the next election is likely to be fought on you see that Cameron has quite a distinct advantage. By the time of the next election, the economy will be—or will have been—in recession, shining a light on Brown’s actual economic record and making it harder for him to claim that all the trouble has come from America. Huge amounts will still have been spent on public services without the desired results and the problems of a broken society will, sadly, still be with us.

This is not where the Tory advantage ends. As Cameron’s speech today reminded us, the Tories are led by an able performer while I don’t think even Brown’s own supporters would claim that he is a natural in this respect. It seems reasonable to expect that Cameron will benefit from the increased media exposure during a general election campaign while Brown won’t.

This is all worth bearing in mind as I’d wager that if the polls don’t show the Tories getting a decent conference bounce a lot of commentators will be keen to declare that Brown in back in the game; as Jonathan Freedland noted the other day in The Guardian, the media are keen for a new narrative. The absence of a bounce will not, though, be proof of the political plates shifting. It will more likely be a consequence of the Tories not getting much coverage during their conference because of the financial crisis and a short term boost for Brown from it. 

Brown’s most potent attack on Cameron was his ‘this is no time for a novice’ line. Cameron went a long way to rebutting that today with the Obama inspired line that the “risk is sticking with what you’ve got and expecting a different result.” I suspect that asking people in 2010 if they want another three years like the last three they have had under Brown will produce the answer no.