So the great clunking fist has pencilled in next spring for a dash to the polls.
Gordon Brown, if the spin emanating from his camp is to be believed, plans to set out his stall over the next eight months, then — opinion polls willing — go after his mandate.
The timing reflects a striking confidence on the part of our normally cautious prime minister. There are many differences between Tony Blair and Brown. One of the more important ones, however, would seem to be the esteem they feel for David Cameron. The former prime minister — one cannot help feeling — has a sneaking regard for the Conservative leader who has paid him the ultimate compliment of imitating almost every move in the Blair playbook, just as Margaret Thatcher could not help seeing something she liked in Blair.
Brown feels no such warm glow towards his would-be nemesis. In fact, he regards him with contempt. Not only is Cameron the latest obstacle in his way but Brown sees little to convince him that the Tory leader really is the heir to Blair that Tory strategists would have us believe. Brown and his advisers are far from convinced that Cameron has the golden touch and the Tory leader’s first recent missteps will have served only to confirm that view.
The message this week is that Brown feels he needs just eight months to be confident of seeing off the Tory leader. Of course, the timing could change. The polls could turn against him; events could hijack him. But the message is one that should send a chill down Cameron’s spine.
However, it could be worse for the Tories. Brown could go sooner. The really brave choice would be an autumn election. This could be dressed up as a desire to give the public an early chance to approve the new PM — a sign of the new style of uncynical government he wants us to believe he intends to lead.
More importantly, it would catch the Conservatives at a serious disadvantage. Cameron has done much to remove the reasons for not voting Tory, but as yet has offered little to give voters reasons to vote Tory. The longer Brown leaves it, the more time the Conservatives have to get their act together. More important, the longer he leaves it, the longer the public has to tire of him.
But Brown is not in the business of being really brave. He is in the business of winning, and he prefers to enter his battles with the outcome already determined. This means giving himself time to set the rules of the battle, to choose the field and to ensure that as much of the contest as possible is fought on his terms. It means giving himself the time to define his opponent rather than let his opponents define themselves. What is interesting, however, is that Brown seems to feel he needs to spend less time softening them up before going to the polls than many would have expected.
His best bet, therefore, is to set out his stall and use a bounce in the polls to see off Cameron before diminishing returns set in. The latest he can opt for this strategy would be next spring. After that he must rely on pummelling his opponent over the long haul.
All of this makes for some hard decisions for the Tories. There have been many missteps in recent weeks and the party has barely managed to string together a coherent policy initiative without seeing it crumble within days of its announcement.
More importantly, it has yet to show voters what it is really about. Cameron and his team of tacticians are right to believe they need not bombard voters with policies and proposals. They will garner little attention and simply offer ammunition to Labour. What matters is giving voters a sense of what you stand for so that they can make a reasonable assumption about how you might react to an as yet unforeseen problem.
But Cameron’s Tories are so fixated with telling voters what they are not that they have yet to tell us what they are. Determined not to be associated with the ‘greed is good’ yuppie culture of the Thatcher era, they veer away from speaking up for aspiration. So determined are they not to be seen as the party of business that they back off from defending it.
All we know is that they are in favour of the environment, localism, being tough on crime and the NHS. Every time old Tory values — school selection, low tax, free enterprise — raise their heads, Cameron’s party shies away. It fears that it cannot occupy the centre ground, in which it rightly seeks to position itself, if it is identified too closely with these issues. Allow the party to be pushed too far back on to traditional ground and Brown can paint them as the same old Tories. Flounder on the centre ground and the party looks shallow and is open to internal feuding.
It must define itself clearly without vacating the centre ground. Here, then, is Cameron’s dilemma and it is one that Brown will be only too pleased to exploit. The Tories now have eight months to work out how they can stand on all the things they want to stand on without being seen to be the old party that voters rejected. The clock is ticking and the great clunking fingers are drumming out the seconds.
