Would a bit more frankness help his position?

It’s inevitable, I suppose, given the total cock-up in Labour’s communications ahead of the election that never was in October 2007, that Brown is going to be pressed about the date whenever he submits himself to an interview.

This came up in the latest Andrew Marr interview and it will come up time and time again. So why doesn’t he make an effort to sound convincing?

For perhaps the most damaging feature of the October 2007 debacle was his refusal to accept that the apparent change of mind had anything to do with the opinion polls. He just looked shifty and Cameron exploited that brilliantly.

Surely everybody would accept that a Prime Minister who believes that what he/she is doing is good for the country will want to continue in the role and for the party to be re-elected. And as we near the end of the fourth year of a parliament there’s bound to be increasing speculation and, of course, he/she will be scrutinising every new poll for possible indications.

So why not just say so in so many terms? Why get into the form of words and contortions that seemed to afflict Brown yesterday? It simply doesn’t make sense.

This, of course, is going to explode if a voting intention survey from one of the mainstream pollsters has Labour equal or even ahead. Brown Central needs to get its thinking cap on.

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But is this good news for Labour?

Almost every month for getting on for three decades MORI has asked its “most important issues facing the country” questions in exactly the same format. Two points are put, both completely unprompted. Firstly they are asked which is the “most important issue” then they are asked to name, without a limit on numbers “other important issues”

A striking feature of the latest poll is that the NHS, a long-time political football and an issue on which Labour has very much claimed to be its own, scored it’s lowest rating for more than a decade. Just 2% of the interviewees put it as the most important issue with a further 10% naming it amongst other issues.

Just look at the trend in the Ipsos-MORI chart to see what it has been in recent years.

Clearly the health service has seen a step change in government spending and this appears to be showing through in the polls in that the public are less concerned about it. The question is whether as we get closer to a general election this is good for Labour or not?

Will, come the day of the general election, a grateful electorate thank Brown for what has gone on - or will they say “well we’ve put the extra money in through higher taxes and we expect a better service?”

For is one of the consequences of the post-2001 election tax hike specifically for the NHS that the relationship between tax-payer and government is different? You pay the extra tax but you get a better NHS - it’s almost like a consumer transaction.

It’s here that the almost knee-jerk reaction of politicians to try to take the credit for everything might not be the smartest move. For a lot of that tax hike has gone on things that have been controversial - particularly the enhanced terms and conditions for GPs who have seen rapid advances in their earnings.

And, also, claiming credit for what the tax-payer is doing could produce negative responses. There are lots of questions about how Labour has mortgaged the future through PFI schemes - something that’s likely to become a bigger issue as the economy takes even more a centre stage.

For me what the MORI data suggests is that the NHS might not be the political football that it was.

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Michael Kennedy is the 2008 PB Forecaster of the Year

The final results for the 2008 prediction competition have now been number-crunched - the top 20 are shown above, while the full results are available via the link below. Congratulations to the leading forecasters, with Michael Kennedy finishing ahead of Houndtang and Ian Hunter, and thanks to everyone who took part.

Just check out the questions here.

PB 2008 competition results

For the 2008 events section, only two players predicted Joe Biden to be elected Vice-President (70% got Obama in the White House, with the competition coming right after the Iowa caucuses), while only 36% predicted Boris to see off Ken, and a mere 16% forecasted a No vote in the Irish EU referendum.

All of the “big four” in the Cabinet managed to last the year, despite Jacqui Smith’s average predicted tenure being just 253 days, with Darling not much better at 287. The final ICM/Guardian highs and lows were 45-37 for the Conservatives, 35-25 for Labour, and 22-17 for the Lib Dems, while the Conservative lead varied from a massive 20 to a shaky 2 points.

Finally, the often tricky to predict May local elections, including adjustments for the London Assembly, saw the Conservatives up 259 seats, the Lib Dems up by 31, while Labour were down by 333.

Gaza coverage:

Al-Jazeera

BBC

Haaretz

Jerusalem Post

Double Carpet

Guardian video after about 2 minutes

Are Toynbee’s comments an attack or an excuse?

In a New Year video the veteran Guardian columnist, Polly Toynbee, makes some highly pointed comments about Gordon Brown’s communication capabilities which I have not seen picked up elsewhere.

She says of the PM “He’s not a very good speech maker. He doesn’t have a great facility with the English language. He’s not very emotionally intelligent. He can’t reach out and touch people and make them feel enthusiastic. ..There’s a long way to go before people will know why they should vote Labour for a fourth time”

Polly is very influential within the Labour movement and her pre-conference column in September titled “Unseating Gordon Brown maybe Labour’s last chance” was hardly welcomed by Brown Central.

She seems to have eased off as Labour has improved in the polls but it must be an irritant to have someone who for so long was a strong supporter being prepared to put the boot in.

These latest comments seem to ring true and highlight what is surely a big issue for Labour - the ability of their man to perform during an intensive election campaign. Could it be that she’s preparing the ground to attack his leadership again if and when the polls turn against the party?

All this makes the 7/4 bet that many of us made on Brown being the first party leader to go even more promising. That’s now tightened to 5/4 with the PM now being the favourite of him/Cameron/Clegg to be out first.

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