The ICM poll in today’s Guardian has the Tories ahead by 15 points, their largest lead in it since August. This combined with the Populus poll showing that Brown’s lead on the question of who is best leader to deal with the recession has shrunk dramatically seems to confirm what most commentators thought: the PBR was, to use Iain Martin’s phrase, a political dud.
The financial crisis has allowed Brown to present himself as the leader Britain needed and to improve his international standing; even if Mandelson is laying it on a bit thick when he says that “People really do look to him like some Moses figure who is going to lead them away from this economic mess to the promised land.” But it now appears that this political moment is over.
In a fascinating interview with The Guardian, Mandelson comes up with this explanation of why Brown was in such political trouble by the summer:
“In Gordon’s first year, he neither had a global financial crisis in which to display his skills, but neither did the government seem to be creating a new agenda of boldness that people need from any government that has been in office for over a decade. The default assumption about any party that has been in government for so long is that it has run out of ideas. You have to try doubly hard to demonstrate conclusively that this is not the case. The truth is we were not doing that successfully.”
In this context, Mandelson’s comment that “I do believe – and I have said this to Gordon – that there is a role for some of the Blairite heavy hitters outside the government to play a role and make a contribution” is particularly interesting.
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