With not much more than 100 days before the expected polling day, the countdown towards this game-changing general election has begun and the preliminary skirmishes have already been fought. Full battle will commence in April after the Easter holiday provides a natural break for Parliament to be prorogued.
While the nation craves this creaking saga to be over, it is fanciful that Gordon Brown’s character would allow him to go to the country earlier and politically risible to imagine that he might, as still constitutionally he could, a month later. So, fewer than 100 days for Mr Brown and his Government to come up with some ideas to convince more than the die-hard core vote, which simply does not want a Conservative government, he and it deserve a fourth term in power that.
There are many, very many in the Parliamentary Labour Party and in the Cabinet, who emphasise the distinction between Mr Brown and the Government in this respect and it is the difference between the Government’s prospects and the Government’s prospects with Mr Brown at the head of it which informed not just the actions of those behind the coup fiasco – Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon are now universally dubbed as the “Dumb and Dumber” of Westminster, the net result of their actions to damage the party and reinforce Mr Brown – but the mood of probably a majority of the PLP. The subsequent meeting of Labour MPs was inevitably a rally, albeit a fatalistic one: a victory cheer for the Light Brigade before they faced the Russian guns. At least they were taken by tactical surprise in their massacre. This lot wouldn’t be.
The appearance by Alastair Campbell before the Chilcot inquiry will have done nothing to lift the nihilistic gloom, revealing nothing much new in substance but reinforcing and reminding in chilling chutzpah that Tony Blair lied to Parliament and the country. There were no weapons of mass destruction, the reasoning deployed to sucker the support of Parliament for the military invasion of Iraq. Both Mr Blair and Mr Campbell knew that, both are responsible for the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands and the stench which hangs over the Government still. For good measure, Mr Campbell went out of his way to emphasise Mr Brown’s role in being close to Mr Blair throughout.
Flash forward and David Cameron is showing serious signs of weakness and bad judgement under pressure and there is still time for some courageous policy initiatives. First, Mr Brown should reverse the concessions he gave to the cuts crusaders on that meltdown Wednesday and show that the election is not going to be a fight between who can cut deepest.
If cuts are required, first in line should be Trident. The public sector should be defended not threatened. Something, the more punitive the better, should be done about the banks and their executives who are in the process of stealing billions of taxpayers’ money for bonuses that defy the broad democratic will but which the Government appears ready to stand by and let happen.
Only boldness can save the Government in its last 100 days.
