So where does Gordon stand now?
October 6th, 2007
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Markets move sharply after the reports from Downing Street
With the dramatic news this afternoon that a November is off there’s been a lot of activity on the various general election betting markets. In addition there was a report by Nick Robinson on the BBC that a poll of marginals would show that Labour could lose power.
There are no details on that but it has forced the Labour spreads right down on the spread markets. The latest from Spreadfair has CON 243-252: LAB 310-334: LD 47-49.5
The critical thing is just how damaging this will all be to Brown. My guess is that getting the news out early will take some of the sting out of it.
Mike Smithson
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Well he isn’t looking strong that’s for damn sure.
Getting it out early???? Duh???
He left it until 72 hours before the very last Constitutional moment possible.
He could have told us…. ooh… in July… or when we all came back from our hols, or AS SOON AS THE SPECULATION STARTED.
That would have been “early”. The whole point of this shameful fiasco is that he didn’t get it out “early”.
The Blairites were right. He is an idiot. Clever, but an idiot.
…Ming sticking the boot in - remember he has been in this job for 10 years - how does he find himself getting into trouble so quickly - even before the 100 days are out
It’ll be rough for a while, no doubt.
Won’t make much of a difference in 2009.
You should note, Mike, that the move on the spread markets won’t be directly due to the markets judgement on Brown as leader. It’s just simply that putting the election off for 2 years massively widens the range of possible options. Since an election would only be called now if Labour was pretty confident of winning, a Tory rise on the spreads was inevitable once the election was cancelled. Also due to people taking their losses having gambled on a early election.
I don’t suppose it will matter very much to the voter on the Clapham omnibus.
Conservative posters here seem overjoyed it is off: was “bring it on” just bravado?
I’m still laughing frankly, the future streches out before us like a green vally, bathed in afternoon sunlight…
Brown will probably take a hit from this for a week or two, from there on the impact will be less obvious, however it will contribute to undermining the image he seeks to present as “father of the nation” and i think a signifcant section of the media could lambast him for this, but it’ll all be acumulative and after next week could still take time. It is now a question as to weather the resumption of parliamentary hostilities will enable DC ant the Conservatives to retain even build upon some of the momentum that seems to have been aquired this week.
Is there a market on Brown being forced out of the leadership before the next election - if he starts blaming anyone else other than his inflated ego he deserves to go
lets all go back to the pre handover talk of tories calling him an electoral liability and the nulab spinners calling him the greatest political mind of all time…… i think we all know the answer now dont we.
Embarrassing but in all honesty it will be forgotten soon enough. However, he will probably suffer a temporary poll hit and I expect to see a small Conservative lead in at least one poll fairly soon.
There will be a lot of flying start leaflets pulped tomorrow!
The only way out for Brown is to bring forward an EU Constitution referendum - it will be a damage limitation exercise but that’s all. However will the UK’s 1.5-2 million non British EU citizens be allowed the right to vote? The only way for Labour is this go for the referendum and hope that a ‘Yes’ vote is returned even if more than 1 million of those votes come from EU citizens. The odds must be shortening on the referendum call now.
BTW I wonder if Alistair Darling is rapidly rewriting the CSR? Not much point in giving the pre-election sweeteners on Health and Education now when they need to be stored up for later.
Any thoughts Mike.
If not Autumn 2007 then when??
Well, Gordon is going to look like a bottler to the comentariat, as per Nick Cohen, that can’t help.
Also there are going to be ructions and recriminations in the Labour party which will damage their position and lose them poll points leading to more rucktions….
Ha ha ha ha.
(I was right, again
)
Lol - BBC newsreader being openly contemptuous to Diane Abbott’s soothing tones
Rubbish Mike. Blaming it on the electoral register when he knew about that issue a week ago. It’s an ugly rout, rather than a retreat. His image among the public will take a heavy long term hit. Still he can hide from the electorate for a couple of years.
What about Ming, though? LDs have stared down the barrel of a heavy GE defeat. Are you really telling me that he can continue for another two years? Surely the men in sandals will get him to do the decent thing?
It must be worth a thread in the near future.
There may still be a winter poll…
Have you forgotten the Airdrie and Shotts by-election?
SNP gain anyone?
Gord will now have to get on with his plan to “reform” the electoral system… AV
The LibDems and Labour need each other more than ever now…
You can still lay at 40s on Betfair which might reflect doubts as to whether Betfair will wait till there is an election before settling.
BBC hinting that Gordon due to make announcement about no Autumn election
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7031749.stm
Has Brown actually said openly that the election is off?
All I can find so far is “Nick Robinson thinks that….”?
19 - Can it be true? Where did you hear this?
6 - Probably wont matter to the man on the Clapham Omnibus as Nick Robinson reckons that elections don’t impact on ordinary people.
“The only source of comfort for Labour politicians is that in the end this is about Westminster calculations and is not a decision that affects ordinary people’s lives.”
Let that be a lesson for you Brown and your Labour party…
Don’t mess with the Tories…
Gordon Brown! Can you hear me Gordon Brown? Your boys took one hell of a beating. Your boys took one hell of a beating…
http://notw.typepad.com/saturday_notw/2007/10/stop-press.html
hat tip Iain Dale
For those who think this sounds Mings end as leader of the LD’s it could turn out that he does very well out of this fiasco. He did very well and was well received on Thursday on Question Time and he can attack Brown over Iraq as well as this non-election, next week.
If the media is going to savage Brown over this then I’m sure they will quote Ming as well as David Cameron. Brown could have helped both opposition leaders in the last couple of weeks.
While the Conservatives broke the back of Brown’s opportunist ambition, Ming got several good attacks in. He has strengthened his position over the last couple of weeks and will be harder to remove.
I wouldn’t vote for the LD’s but respect where it is due.
15 - He made her sound like Abbott had just landed from another, the way she ignored the obvious.
Unfortunately for her, he was right!
Sky: Brown recording interview with Andrew Marr now!
17 Why don’t they merge into a centre left grouping called something like the ‘Social Democratic and Labour Party’?
Mrs Dale’s Dairy has NoTW polling of marginals story - “Hung Parliament” !!
http://www.iaindale.blogspot.com/
4. Nah, the economy will in 2009.
I think we can now be confident the story is true, theres been a bit too much press for it otherwise.
12. Look at it another way. Growth is being revised downward, Darling says there are going to be flow throughs from the money markets on the real economy. Election or no, some of that may well be reflected in the spending review..or they can live in debnial and borrow and tax their way through.
24 50 seat loss!!! 1997 landslide nickp???
PMQ’s will be fun on Wednesday
Adam Boulton saying that Brown will make the statement “through a sympathetic interviewer”.
Presumably that is Andrew Marr. How can the BBC continue to employ someone widely regarded as sympathetic to Labour?
Hint why employ someone married to the Labour mouth piece Jackie Ashley?
6. I’m not a Tory, but I hate Labour and want the worst possible for them.
So yes, for me at least, saying Bring It On (if I ever said that) was pure bravado. First he shouldn’t have got into the position in the first place. But once he was in so deep, by this weekend - I think he should have gone for it.
Because I think the outcome will now be worse. He will be savaged for ever as the Chicken Lickin Prime Minister. He is wounded and will never be quite the same. Labour will drag on for two or three more years but I think an economic downturn will now impact very badly on Brown - and Labour.
I think he will also, now, be forced to grant an EU referendum. If he’d gone to the people and got a sixty seat majority he could have held off the clamour.
This is the best way to get him to grant an EU vote.
No Tory response yet? They’re obviously taking care to pitch it absolutely right.
Brown can’t call a referendum given what he’s said, that would be the final nail in the coffin marked ‘opportunist’.
17 Is there to be a by election in Airdrie and Shotts?
33 - And Adam boulton is married to…?
36. He will have to, to prevent a year long savaging from the tabs.
He is no longer in a position to withstand that merciless kind of abuse. And he has rebels on his own side who can see he is wounded.
I think he will grant a vote - or block the Treaty.
24. And there in a nutsjhell is why its likely off.
37. John Reid takes on the Chairmanship of Celtic in November. It would be unusual if he was to remain an MP!
38 Alex Boulton is married to Angie ex Blair gatekeeper and she left her political job soon after the relationship started.
I don’t care if you are Tory, Labour or Lib Dem - we all know what happened this week.
Brown demonstrated that when the pressure is REALLY on he is weakj dithering and paralysed by indecision.
Cameron demonstrated that when the pressure is REALLY on he is cool, decisive and equal to the occasion.
Forget foot-and-mouth, failed bombs and other non-crises - if the heat really came down on this country, who would you want in charge?
41 - Unusual but not impossible.
I think the NotW poll must be misleading. It looks like they’ve polled 50 marginal constituencies and concluded that Labour would lose almost all of them. In which case they would presumably lose a whole chunk of others not polled.
As a political neutral to both Labour and Tory - this has to be Labour’s biggest gaffe in years. Brown is Labour’s new Michael Foot. Surely the Brown bounce must be over now or come to an end soon.
Can I just say - maybe I am the first! - that I think this is Labour’s Black Wednesday.
It’s one of those moments when the whole landscape changes. We’ve been waiting for Labour’s Black Wednesday for fifteen years: a truly disastrous political error, when confidence starts ebbing away.
This may not become apparent for a few months, but I think the political seasons have just turned.
[Apologies for the cliches. Too gleeful to be creative.]
Firstly, it is not totally impossible that Nick Robinson could have made a mistake. Secondly, this might be a short term setback but will it really change people’s perceptions? I remember September 2000 when the Tories surged into the lead on the back of the fuel crisis. Fast forward a few months later and I remember Anne Widdecombe on the TV saying ‘well at least we gained 1 seat’ the night after the election.
Personally, if Nick Robinson is correct then my prediction is February March 2008. I expect Brown to call an election before the US election and I don’t expect him to give the Conservatives another opportunity to gain a massive burst of publicity before any annoucment.
Woody662, “PMQ’s will be fun on Wednesday”
Yes providing ALL the opposition questions are about the election.
And by “the opposition” I include the Lib Dems in this. So please no questions about a threatened bus route or the problems in a country we never heard of.
Lets just have a PMQ’s on the election and what Brown has done.
clunking fist or limp wrist?
41 Surely Reid has only announced he is standing down at the next General Election?
48 hahhahaahahah
Tory 6% lead in the marginals….
The NOTW suggests that all those 49 labour marginal seats polled would be lost. Given that there may well be a number of others unpolled outside of those 49 that labour would now lose, the labour figure is probably lower than the 306 seats they suggest.
So, no election.
[Eats hat]
348. Whats the US election got to do with it?
What a difference a week makes: last Saturday Cameron was facing a conference many said would be his last with talk of Tory activists plotting. Gordon was 11% ahead, his team buzzing, papers full of his political mastery.
Two factors:
- the combined Conservative front bench team, with Gorgeous George Osborne and the Camback King
-Basra
Sky say ICM poll in marginals 44% C and 38% L
Unseating a 49 Labour MPs including the Home Secy.
bbc just confirming the 6% NoW
48. Matthew Partridge. “Firstly, it is not totally impossible that Nick Robinson could have made a mistake.”
I think this is technically known as Pathological Denial.
47,
Bollox you realy do live in book land.
Most people are happy in the pub with England winning a game against the aussies.
You wont to get out more,go to the pub tonight and see what they are talking about
2009 it is then!
LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to announce that he will not hold an early general election, Sky News and BBC television said Saturday, quoting unnamed government sources.
Advertisement
“I understand from our sources that having looked at the polling data coming in the prime minister has decided that this is not the time to hold a general election,” Sky’s political editor Adam Boulton said.
Boulton, whose wife Anji Hunter was former prime minister Tony Blair’s “gatekeeper” and had many members of Blair’s Cabinet at his wedding, said Brown will make a statement soon to kill the rumours.
The BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson said the decision comes ahead of an opinion poll for Sunday’s News of the World newspaper that, rumour has it, suggests a “significant” lead for the main opposition Conservative Party in key marginal seats.
“We are expecting the prime minister to confirm himself in a statement … that he’s not going to proceed with an election this year, indeed that there won’t be an election next year and that he’s not looking at an election before 2009,” Robinson added.
ITV news “latest polls brought the worst news for gordon brown….Cameron was 6% ahead in marginals”!!!
Chick chick chick chick chicken
Lay a little egg for me
Chick chick chick chick chicken,
I want one for my tea
I haven’t had an egg since easter,
And now it’s half past three,
Sooo chichick chick chick chick chicken,
Lay a little. Egg for me
Sky ICM poll more
57% Labour and 71% Conservative turnout in the 83 marginals.
I am a little suspicious of “marginals” polls as the third party in the seats polled tends to do better than they would in the real thing when they are squeezed and campaigned out of the picture. I suspect Brown’s decision was driven by the fact that the bigger picture is too volatile and a narrow poll lead could easily evapourate in the polls. I do not believe he judges that it is all fine in safe seats but dicey in the marginals.
I know it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the moment but my guess is that this will all blow over fairly quickly. As Nick robinson says, an uncomfortable week ahead for Gordon then not much more.
However if Cameron can paint Gordon as a ditherer he could be onto something particularly as ‘Dave the Chameleon’ won’t really wash since the Tory conference. If he plays his cards right he can appear as the most decisive leader on offer.
Had I put money on this one I would have been up, as apart from a couple of wobbles I never thought it was going to happen, but never mind.
48. Secondly if the media have made a mistake and have been misinformed you think they’ll be delighted?
nope….
Matthew Partridge at 48 sums up the disbelief and totally sick feeling you get when your leader drops you from a very great height.
It’s true. No election, it was spin.
This is damaging - possibly terminal for Brown and probably for the entire New Labour edifice because it proves even to the most politically un-engaged what we have been saying for a decade.
They are all spin and no substance.
50 join to choose “clunking fist or limp wrist?”
Priceless
ITV News - 4.45 Top Story - Election Off - ‘ITV has learned’ Gordon Brown will confirm NO election this autumn.
61. Yeah yeah yeah. Whatever, You lost. Yaroo!
This is a site for political geeks. OF COURSE we care lots more than normal people. We’re geeks. What are you posting on here for? why aren’t you in the pub?
So we care more. But what we care about now will slowly percolate down to the rest of the populace, via the newspapers, TV and radio. It will do this because people like me - journalists - will tell everyone else what a cowardly dork Brown is.
This will take a few weeks, but it will happen.
ITV call Andrew Marr a ‘pet broadcaster’ ouch!
From looking at Coffeehouse it looks as if the NoW put a 4:45 embargo on for the media, but well done Tim Montgomerie for being first with the news!
61 - Yes, quite right. Actually rather smart to announce it on the back of the England/Australia shock as that is a far bigger story for most people tonight.
New thread on ICM poll
69 - Even more damaging - it WASN’T spin, but Labour are having to pretend that it was!!
47. I think you’re right. GB should have been decisive and called the election after their conference. By dithering it’s quite possible that he’s not going to win an election at all, when it finally comes.
Even the timing of this is crap for Brown, being just before a very bad poll. Has he got people working for him who are completely divorced from reality?
45 According to Anthony Wells the polling was in the 49 most marginal Lab/Con seats and the 34 most marginal Con/Lab seats . A 6% Conservative lead would therefore be around a 3.5% swing in the marginals .
66 - Gordon seems not to be as suspicious of them as you. He took one look and ran a mile.
ITV are scathing about brown “a pet broadcaster has been seen going into downing st to record the interview”…”gordons career is one of dithering and indecision”..etc etc
So we still have an unelected prime minister (not even elected by his own party): the last one was Sir Alec Douglas-Home
The main problem with these marginal polls is that the Broadcaster’s don’t understand them! Great for the Tories though, being reported as if they’ve got a 6% lead nationally.
But hold on: the Electoral Register is out of date, and it would have disenfranchised a million people to go to the polls now. And hold on, there is a postal strike, and hundreds of thousands of people could have been robbed of their vote because of late ballots.
These things were true earlier last week when some of us said it would be outrageous opportunism to ignore them just because the polls were good - and they are still true now.
Does Brown really have the character to be PM - were all the Blairites right about his state of mind etc
Do we want a PM whose lifes work is political calculation - what does he stand for -
Do we not deserve a vote of no confidence
It would have been brave and principled to go the country to seek a personal mandate to govern but to march everyone up the hill and then look at a bad opinion poll and pull back indicates no self belief just a cold calculating political mind with no substance
Not Black Wednesday - but Khaki Monday in Basra. One stunt blew the whole thing to pieces. Although Osborne played a blinder, Cameron was able to look statesmanlike compared to Brown’s cheap and distateful opportunism.
And for those who think this will be quickly forgotten. Wrong - we will remind you of it every day for the rest of Brown’s limping, quacking premiership….
Adam Boulton was discretely but thoroughly putting the boot in. He and ITV seem miffed about brown giving a pet interview to one broadcaster.
He rally does not want to get the pack onside, it seems.
Cameron got his piece in to camera an hour ago saying do it or shut up Gordon,enough games.
The BBC is a pet broadcaster
On reflection has Brown tried to bully his way into an election win in the same way as he bullied his way into the Labour leadership?
Re. 34, not just the economy, but also all that Ashcroft money pouring into the marginals for two years. The decision to rule out an election next year may well come to be seen as on a par with Blair’s ‘no fourth term’ announcement.
To 41. John Reid taking on the Chairmanship of Celtic makes no difference to his position as an MP; in the last Parliament George Foulkes (now Lord Foulkes MSP) was Chairman of Heart of Midlothian until he resigned because they’ve got a nutty Latvian (I think) owner. So no Airdrie and Shotts by-election for anybody to gloat about.
This is the sensible decision, irrespective of polls. Too many seats haven’t selected candidates or are half-way through the process, and by waiting until 2009 all Ashcroft’s money in the marginals will be spent.
Well done Gordon - some good news on Iraq this week and a solid CSR and Pre-Budget Report and this will be history.