James Forsyth reviews the week in politics
The bar of the Brighton Metropole hotel was packed on Saturday night, with the sort of people locals would want to avoid. It was the Tory spring conference, and the journalists and aides were drawn to the bar not only by the prospect of doing a whole conference’s worth of drinking in one night but by news of a ‘seismic’ poll in the Sunday Times. If there was going to be conference drama, no one wanted to miss it. When midnight passed with no news, anticipation heightened. In the early hours of the morning, the news arrived: the YouGov poll pointed to a Labour victory.
Until that poll was published, ‘Five more years of Gordon Brown’ had been little more than a Tory slogan; no one could quite believe that the electorate would inflict that on themselves. But after 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, it looked a real and frightening prospect. The Tories were still ahead but the absurdly skewed nature of the electoral system means that a two-point Tory lead would result in Labour being by far the largest party in a hung parliament. More drinks were ordered.
Gabby Bertin, Cameron’s press secretary, grasped that this poll provided the Tories with an opportunity. They could use it to turn Cameron’s speech into a make or break moment, confident that he would pass the test — and rise from this very low base.
For the second time in his leadership, Cameron had blown a big opinion poll lead. For the second time, he sought to redeem the situation by speaking without notes. His speech passed the test. But it had lost the shock of the new. The opinion polls did recover, if a minority government against one of the most unpopular Labour leaders in modern history can be called a recovery. But the overriding feeling, on every bench in the Commons, is that the political wheel is still in spin. It could well be that the Sunday Times poll was the result of a sampling error, but it electrified Labour and scared the Tories. ‘A monkey on a stick could get a two-point lead against Brown,’ moaned one Tory MP.
Adding to their worries is that the Tories still retain a worrying capacity for self-harm. On Monday, they should have been building on the momentum generated by Cameron’s speech. They had a week dominated by their strongest and most thought-through policy area, education. But thrust at the beginning of it was Lord Ashcroft’s admission that he is a non-dom. This was bizarre timing to say the least. Ashcroft had known since the Information Commissioner’s ruling at the start of February that he would have to clarify his tax status. So it seems odd to schedule that announcement (and the Tories were certainly aware that it was coming on Monday for quite some time) for the day after the end of their conference.
Most MPs, from all parties, still believe Mr Cameron will be prime minister. But the hard work Cameron is making of getting there is causing even some of his own supporters wonder about how competent a Prime Minister he will be.
Mr Cameron’s get-out-of-jail card, the ‘no notes’ speech, can only work a limited number of times. His first attempt, the shortish speech which propelled him from back in the pack to favourite for the leadership in 2005, was seen as good. But it was evident that Cameron had learnt the speech by heart. His hour-long version in October 2007 was not memorised and all the more impressive for it. But now we know he can do this trick, it has lost much of its dramatic impact. On Sunday, the journalists watched it as if it were just another important speech. By contrast in 2007, the press corps was on the edge of its seats waiting to see if he would fall off the tightrope. The Tories can’t be certain that one of these Cameron specials will be enough to get them out of the next hole they dig themselves into.
Also, Gordon Brown has now lost his ability to provoke. The explosive revelations from Andrew Rawnsley’s latest book served to shock — but not surprise. The public has heard so much about Brown’s bad behaviour that it can no longer see the wood for the trees. As one senior member of the shadow Cabinet said wearily to me on Sunday as we discussed the matter, ‘it’s all priced in’.
Expectations have been set ahead of the televised debates. If the Prime Minister gets through them without hurling his water glass at Cameron in frustration, he will be considered to have outperformed expectations. Brown is benefitting from the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Even now, after having been dangled over an electoral precipice, the Tories have still not finished the repairs to their campaign. In Brighton, the Tories unveiled a six-point plan. But as one shadow Cabinet member said to me on Tuesday, ‘six messages is still three too many’. This analysis is as depressing as it is accurate. In a modern election, polls show that a party can only expect three messages to make it through the din of the campaign. Even now, with a few weeks to go, the Tories have not finally decided what those messages should be.
One campaign veteran thinks that they should, given the situation, be 20 points up and Tory MPs are increasingly irritated by the party’s failure to pull clear. When a loyal MP rose at the 1922 Committee last week to point out that a few years ago the party would have given its right arm for a six-point lead, by far the loudest shouts of affirmation came from where the whips were sitting. But Cameron’s failure to make more headway must be considered against a backdrop of an utter lack of trust in politicians. As leader of the opposition, all David Cameron has to work with is words. A politician’s words are, in the eyes of the electorate, a much-debased currency.
Mr Cameron appears to have (just) done enough to recover the situation. As someone who has worked extremely closely with Cameron put it to me this week, ‘you don’t need to worry about him when it is a crisis. But when he’s ahead something goes.’ If Cameron had behaved every day as if it were a crisis, he might have taken advantage of Labour’s internecine warfare to build an unassailable advantage. This opportunity was lost.
But if it is crises that Mr Cameron likes, then he is applying for the right job. He will inherit a fiscal crisis. If (as looks likely) his majority will be small, it won’t be long before he faces a parliamentary crisis. Two loyal Tory MPs who know the mood of the parliamentary party have told me this week that a Tory majority of less than 20 would be a worst result for Mr Cameron than a hung parliament: he would find himself regularly being held hostage by a handful of rebellious Tory MPs. If Cameron is to avoid either of these fates, then he must be at his crisis best between now and polling day.
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