Brown Bottles

Since July there has been speculation that Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown was considering calling an autumn ‘snap’ election. Since then I’ve been musing that I didn’t buy it, as I couldn’t see it being in Brown’s long-term interest.

David Cameron’s Conservatives were looking weakened and a couple of polls looked favourable for Brown. Brown, though, has been around long enough to weigh up whether it was worth risking the position he has coveted for 10 years on the back of a couple of polls.

Brown’s spinners hyped up the possibility of a November 1st election apparently at his behest. The problem for Brown’s camp is that the other parties have reacted very quickly to get candidates etc in place for a possible election.

By which point the story of a potential election had developed into something of a runaway train. All actions that were taken became interpreted as being a built-up for the possible campaign ahead. It has even been reported that the Labour manifesto for a possible November election is ready to print.

Tuesday was the day that was spun as being the day that Brown would pop into Buckingham palace to let them know he was ‘going to the country’.

However he’s now called all stop. In an interview with Andrew Marr for the BBC programme ‘Sunday AM’ Brown has said there will be no election this year and supposedly intimated that the earliest that an election would be called would be 2009.

Brown has come out of this looking a bit daft and a bit of a bottler. We can now look forward to the Conservatives trying to paint Brown as a ‘weak’ ‘indecisive’ leader for the next 2 years.

BBC News 24 has been getting reaction from various talking heads with Trevor Kavanagh of the Sun describing it as a ‘calamity’ for Brown. Nigel Griffith, the Labour MP for Edinburgh South, was pretty hilarious as he claimed the episode a triumph. Griffith’s majority is about 400 – he claimed that if there was an election in November his majority would be 2000, if it was next year it would be 3000 and if it was in 2009 it would be 4000. So come the next election we’ll see how accurate (or not!) he was.

If I was Brown I’d be thinking of coinciding the next UK election with the Euro elections in 2009. It would make Europe an issue for the election which would cause problems for Cameron and it would allow them to fight two campaigns in one – saving some money which the Labour party just doesn’t have.

While this one feartie act by Brown might not do him too much damage in the short term its worth remembering that the SNP, Plaid, Lib Dems and Conservatives now have candidates in place in a great number if not most seats. If the election is in 2009 Brown has ensured that the other parties will have candidates and campaign teams in place for 2 years – which might make the next UK election a very interesting battle indeed.