Danny Finkelstein the mad Tory “strategist”-cum-columnist says (HT: LFAT) that Gordon should call an election now because the recession might be his last chance of a Labour victory. These insiders spend too much time strategising, scheming and psephologising. They should look to a more obvious reason to have an election now: this recovery package has been cooked up from thin air by an unelected government and voters have never had a chance to say whether they think it is the right policy prescription. There is now a clearer choice in politics than there has been for many years: a fiscally “dry” Conservative party and a profligate Labour party. If the people think that borrowing to stimulate is the best plan, Labour will win. If they think it is better to save during a downturn, they will vote Conservative.
If Gordon Brown has the courage of his convictions he will stop poncing about with being Superman or telling people to phone 999 for directions. He will put his recovery plan to the people. But he won’t, because he knows it won’t work, he knows people don’t support him, he knows he is well past his use-by date.
Time for a change.
PS: GULP!
just found a bottle of Brown sauce in the cupboard.
Says “use by 1989 or the collapse of worldwide communism will clearly show the utter failure of socialism and socialist planning throughout the globe”
Wonder what it means?
Gordon Brown was only ever issued with a use-by date. They couldn’t give him a sell-by date because no-one would buy him.
BQ – Brown reflects the malaise in British thinking: the confusion of fact and opinion.
PCMP – yep, I chose the words carefully..! To think we smugly call ourselves a democracy!
No-one I know seems to understand the true mess where in. Heads in the sand time.
I think it’s like cooking a lobster – the temperature has been rising steadily for so long that people have been able to ignore it.
this recovery package has been cooked up from thin air by an unelected government and voters have never had a chance to say whether they think it is the right policy prescription
Well said.
As the Germans put it, UK policy has lurched into an entirely new direction – one that was not forseen in any of the 2005 manifestos. Gordon may point out that this is in response to entirely unexpected (cough) events, but be that as it may there is no mandate for this new policy.
We have a Prime Minister with no mandate, operating a highly contentious policy for which he has no mandate. It may or may not be time for a change, but it is certainly time to check.