George Kerevan: What odds that Brown opts for a June election?

Published on Wednesday 26 November 2008 20:41

ONE conclusion from the Pre-Budget Report is that the odds are shortening on a June general election. Of course, our nail-chewing Prime Minister will not make up his mind until the last possible second.

Yet the entire political landscape has changed out of all recognition since the near-collapse of the big banks last September, and Labour has been quick to take advantage by presenting itself as the party in charge of the economic rescue operation. Everyone else has been left wondering why an ungrateful electorate does not see it was Gordon, during his profligate days as Chancellor, who caused the crisis in the first place. Alas, politics is not a game where justice is rewarded.

Next year, Labour faces unavoidable, scheduled elections on 4 June – the poll for the European Parliament and the vote for English county councils, unitary authorities and directly-elected mayors. The local seats were fought in 2005 and 2001 on the same day as the general election, so turnout was higher than usual and to Labour's advantage.

In mid-summer, Labour seemed to be facing the loss of Lancashire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire County Councils to the Cameron bandwagon – places stuffed full of Labour MPs with marginal seats. Morale was rock-bottom and Labour activists expected the Prime Minister would avoid a general election until the last moment possible.

However, that was before Lehman Brothers collapsed sending the world financial system into a tailspin and allowing Gordon Brown to re-brand himself as Economic Superman. A YouGov poll conducted after Monday's Pre-Budget Report gives the Conservatives only a four-point lead over Labour, compared with a 23 per cent lead in May and 9 per cent in October. If these results were repeated at a general election, Labour would be the largest party in a hung parliament as it has an in-built electoral advantage in the North of England, while the Tories would end up taking seats off the Liberal Democrats.

If Labour closed that four-point gap during the course of an election campaign (or earlier), Brown would stay in Downing Street with a majority.

The same poll shows that 60 per cent of people support the government's temporary cut in Vat, while an astonishing 72 per cent actually approve of the new higher-rate income tax band for those earning above 150,000 – probably as revenge on City bankers.

Interestingly, only 28 per cent think the Pre-Budget Report will benefit them personally and only 27 per cent believe the Darling package will work. Opposition parties will take comfort in such ambiguous sentiments, but that is precisely why Brown will be pondering pushing the button for 4 June.

The YouGov poll reveals a universal truth: in emergencies, voters identify with the smack of firm government. What the government might be proposing could prove daft in the long run, but the electorate initially feels more comfortable with positive leadership in a crisis rather than opposition nit-picking.

For instance, during his first 100 days in office, President Kennedy blundered into the Bay of Pigs disaster, when CIA-backed insurgents invaded Cuba and were soundly defeated. Kennedy took full responsibility for the debacle and was promptly rewarded by 82 per cent approval ratings. He quipped: "The worse I do, the more popular I get."

Similarly, Margaret Thatcher (in 1983) and John Major (in 1992) won general elections while in office despite being in the middle of steep recessions caused by their administrations. True, each had the help of passing wars to burnish their leadership credentials, but that just proves my point: the electorate's initial response in a political emergency is to back the government, provided the government puts on a show of conviction and action. It's a perfectly human response.

Of course, this mood rarely lasts. Had Kennedy lived, a combination of revelations about his private life and the imbroglio of the unfolding Vietnam War might have sent his popularity plunging. Major's limp administration sank in a welter of Tory in-fighting over Europe yielding Labour a landslide victory in 1997. As another American president put it, you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but eventually you get found out.

Here is Brown's dilemma: does he delay the election till 2010, when the Vat cuts are reversed and unemployment will be peaking – even if the economy is recovering, which is a very big if? And at which point voters are starting to think forward and worry about years of impending tax rises and a national debt that spells big public spending cuts. Or does our sporting Prime Minister, who played rugby in his youth, go for a June try while the rosy glow of his international economic statesmanship is still warm with the electorate? I know which Lord Mandelson would choose.

A quick election will also reduce the chances that the opposition parties can get their act together. The SNP is in danger of being caught in the long-feared devolutionary trap – boxed-in during a global crisis by having to run a Scottish administration that has few powers to affect the real economy. Alex Salmond has played the statesman and gone on trying to implement long-term reforms, including introducing a local income tax. But the financial levers are all at Westminster and, therefore, so is the political initiative.

As for the Tories, they have opted for a long game, waiting for Labour's humungous borrowing and tax plans to implode. They probably will – but long after a possible June general election. By which time, no-one will remember George Osborne.

It is always possible that Brown will use the June European and local elections as a dry run for an October poll. But if the Chancellor's risky prediction of a return to growth in the second half of 2009 proves false, October would mark Labour's political grave. Better circle 4 June.