Considerable embarrassment
- 6 Oct 07, 04:31 PM
So it was "tosh". There will be no early election. Gordon Brown will claim that although he considered going to the polls he did not believe it was enough to run on 100 days' track record in the job. He would prefer to have a real mandate for change.
Others may care to note that a poll of key marginal constituencies due to appear in tomorrow's News of the World will show that he could have lost that election. Perhaps this assisted the decision-making process. Having allowed the talk of a snap poll to be ramped up by his key ministerial alliies, having put his party on standby, and having altered government business to allow an election to go ahead, this is a considerable embarrassment for Gordon Brown, and will be a huge morale boost for his opponents. On the other hand, people vote about their finances and their personal security, and not on the basis of red faces.
There is an irony in all of this. Although the Tories said bring it on, they did not want an election which they were pretty sure they would lose. Today some of them will be sitting at home wondering what if...
