The latest poll news isn’t good for David Cameron. ICM has the Tories eight points behind Labour and Cameron with the worst personal ratings of all the party leaders. The Lib Dems will be cheered to find themselves hitting that psychologically important 20% mark while Labour will be buoyed by reaching the 40% level.
Grim as this news may be for the Tories, and the word is that there is more bad news to come, there is no need for panic. The Northern Rock crisis has probably killed off any remaining prospect of an Autumn election—if the Tories couldn’t make the idea that Brown is going now because everything is about to collapse stick after the events of the past few days then they don’t deserve to win—which means that politics becomes a long game once more.
Cameron will now probably arrive at conference facing a formidable Labour lead; you have to imagine that Brown’s first conference as PM will see him get a decent bounce.
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