MORI suggested earlier this week that the Tories might be returning to the sort of poll leads they enjoyed in the Summer of 2008, although one poll on its own is, of course, not enough.
Con 48 (+4)
Lab 28 (-2)
LD 17 (-)
CON MAJ >150 (silly nonsense, utmost conjecture and very unlikely to happen - 'CON GAIN BOLSOVER', etc)
It doesn't appear that MORI's respondents agree that the LibDems' position is improving either.
It also appears that Labour may be entering another hilarious phase of internal mucking about, as several newspapers are reporting that Harriet Harman might be positioning herself to become the next leader of the Labour Party, with further chatter than she might team up with John Cruddas to form a so-called 'dream ticket' for the lefties, silly lefties, ultra sillies and completely deluded neo-Marxist ultra statist 1983ites, oh, and the unions. Such a team would only be a dream for the Tories. It's inevitable that an internal debate must ensue in the Labour Party after New Labour has, in the eyes of most, been shown to fail - but as Charles Clarke has often warned, Labour must debate how to take votes off the Tories, not how best (or indeed worst) retreat into idealistic and prejudiced leftwingdom, which so dogged its electoral performance in the 1980s.
Many see James Purnell and Alan Johnson as a future Labour leaders. I would suggest that a pairing of those two might save Labour from its most potent threat - a return to its core beliefs. Such a duo may, however, threaten Labour with terrible factionalism, or worse still, a complete split. This scenario would probably consign them to electoral oblivion. So - excellent.
It may be that Labour will do as badly in 2010 as they did in 1983. If they do, however, it will not be because voters wanted a left wing alternative. It will be because they are sick and tired of a government that thought it could do everything, and suddenly found out everything that it thought it had done, had amounted to nothing.
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1 comment:
Quite.
The ego competition that's evidently taking place around the cabinet table and in the media is highly encouraging and very damaging for them. Blears knows exactly what people want to hear, as ever (see George Monbiot's destruction of her the other week), but in telling them to "get a grip" (we've been saying it for 11 years Hazel) she merely looks as if she's engaging in some positioning of her own. Perhaps a stepladder would be a better investment.
Either way, there's a politicaust waiting to happen, and I'm definitely staying up to watch.
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