The Year of the Voter

One thing is certain about the political year ahead: No. 10 will have a new occupant well before the end of 2007. Not since Eden’s long struggle to replace Churchill has an heir-apparent had to wait as long as Gordon Brown, and the sheer duration of his battle to dislodge Tony Blair has taken a terrible toll on both of them. Assuming there is no late upset — no last-minute dash for the tape by John Reid — the Chancellor will get his wish at last in the next few months. Much is made of Mr Brown’s alleged plans for his ‘first 100 days’. In truth, his most pressing task will be to persuade the electorate that it is their concerns, rather than the leadership succession alone, that has driven him all these years.

In September, as Mr Blair was forced to announce that he would not attend the 2007 Labour conference as leader, he remarked aptly that his party had gone ‘awol from the British public, it looked in on itself, it started all the in-fighting’. As Jon Cruddas, the MP for Dagenham and deputy leadership candidate, told The Spectator earlier this month, Labour is now a ‘virtual party’ whose failures have nurtured the voters’ aggrieved sense that ‘no one is on their side’. 

The Tories, meanwhile, have been scrutinising themselves for healthier reasons. David Cameron’s first 12 months as leader were dominated by his campaign to ‘decontaminate’ the Conservative ‘brand’, to persuade voters that the party’s motives were decent and public-spirited, and to broaden the range of themes which Tories addressed. There have been hiccups, unintentional descents into parody and false turns (most notably on crime). But, overall, Mr Cameron’s strategy has been very successful, yielding a consistent poll lead for his party, Tory victory in the May local elections, and a dynamism that has been long absent from the Conservative party.