Stephan Shakespeare: The Brown honeymoon will likely endure for at least six months

The 'two polls' that appeared in Sunday’s newspapers, each purportedly showing a 7 per cent lead for Labour, were in fact one and the same poll, with two different bits given to two different newspapers, and each press released separately the evening before. So Conservatives thinking that two polls have now confirmed a continuing downward trend can take a crumb of comfort from knowing it was just the one.

The Sunday Telegraph got the proper ‘state of the parties’ question, while the News of the World were given a rather curious follow-up – “Now that Brown has taken over, and faces Cameron and Campbell, are you feeling warmer to the idea of supporting the Tories/Labour/Lib Dems?” I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Feeling ‘warmer’ towards supporting something isn’t the same as voting for it.

We pollsters can sometimes find ourselves writing some pretty weird polling questions, and they can obscure as much as they reveal. In the months before Blair quit the stage, we were asking people how they would vote if Brown were the Labour leader. I warned this question could turn out to be misleading (people can’t know how they will vote under different conditions in the future), but YouGov asked it along with the other pollsters because that’s what newspapers required. The results suggested that Brown would be a pushover for Cameron, and Tories became rather optimistic. At that time I predicted that Brown would perform well in the transfer of power, and that the British people would be generous to the man they saw as finally getting ‘his turn’. That’s happened, and I suspect both this generosity from the public and the quality of his performance will endure for at least six months. Brown could easily call an election before this period is over.

What should worry Conservatives more than the NoW poll is the headline on page 16 of the same newspaper: “Sham Cam” it screams next to an engaging photoshop picture of the Tory leader in safari gear. The article gleefully refers to his trip to Rwanda as “his latest stunt”, and attacks his high (non-green) use of airplanes.

These attacks are coming far too readily to journalists, who seem to find it much easier to praise Brown. This section of the Murdoch press has clearly decided which way it is voting. At a summer party recently, one of the most senior figures at News International told me his view that “the next Conservative Prime Minister will be William Hague”.

It wasn’t very long ago that a prominently pro-Conservative Times columnist was enthusiastically urging Cameron to be ‘more superficial’, in a crass misunderstanding of how lifestyle branding tips for running shoes might be applied to would-be governments. I think we have all now been chastened and have moved beyond this false sophistication. There are signs that Cameron is now looking to offer a more substantial reason for voting. Brown certainly has the momentum and it will need some heavy gear to turn things around in time for a snap election.

Related link: Will Brown really be worse for Labour?

Comments

[bluepatriot]

If the Brown honeymoon is to last six months he should go for an autumn election. Action stations everyone!

[Tapestry]

If NI want Hague, that means the EU wants Hague. No wonder Hague has gone totally silent of late. Since the flurry of his calling for a referendum, he's been quiet as a mouse allowing Gordon Brown to grab the headlines.

Cameron has the problem of being surrounded by Europhiles. Ken Clarke openly, and Hague stealthily.

With Murdoch against him as well, he will need the support of his own party to pull through. They didn't expect Cameron to do as well as he's been doing or to stand up against the EU Constitution so firmly, and now they want to get him shifted.

[Adam Tugwell]

There are messages here that we should all take note of and ignore at our peril.

Rather than spend so much time worrying about when and if there will be an early election, we would be best placed if we started working on the basis that it is absolutely guaranteed. Being prepared now can only benefit the Party if the whole thing gets drawn out, which is of course a real possibility as Brown likes to ruminate for so long.

[Matt Wright]

It is possible he will go the country in May of next year. I agree with a lot in the article on this thread,

Matt

[Bruce Mackie]

With Brown's record as a Chancellor with his stealth taxes and now his attempts to distance himself from the Blair Government seems the height of hypocrisy. If he is that far ahead in the polls then we are in greater trouble than was first thought. The latest is the nonsense is that one of our candidates attended a Labour fundraiser and handed over a cheque on behalf of his 'employers' Is there no thought that what sort of effect this will have on the core Tory vote throughout the country. Solid hardworking candidates are being ditched in this effort to change the perception of the Party. It is apparently not working. I welcome the IDS working party recommendations but we must be careful that this cleansing of the Party does not lead into losing the Tory identity.

[Louise]

Tsk tsk tsk. What a huge crime that newspapers should even dare to support the Prime Minister over some jumped up little imbecile. That's not a photoshop, that's real, and if that's what he's doing rather than put forward some credible positive policies instead of whinging about cuts then he's a bloody fool and should never have been made leader in the first place.

Action stations? - without policy, spin is useless. You need thread, after all, to spin into gold, as the old story goes. I'm not going out on the doorstep in an election campaign in darkest Reading to sell "if Brown gets elected he'll put up taxes so vote Conservative". I'd rather go out dressed in a ballet dress and dance with a man in a fox costume through the streets than vote Tory in any autumn or spring election.

[Louise]

Tsk tsk tsk. What a huge crime that newspapers should even dare to support the Prime Minister over some jumped up little imbecile. That's not a photoshop, that's real, and if that's what he's doing rather than put forward some credible positive policies instead of whinging about cuts then he's a bloody fool and should never have been made leader in the first place.

Action stations? - without policy, spin is useless. You need thread, after all, to spin into gold, as the old story goes. I'm not going out on the doorstep in an election campaign in darkest Reading to sell "if Brown gets elected he'll put up taxes so vote Conservative". I'd rather go out dressed in a ballet dress and dance with a man in a fox costume through the streets than vote Tory in any autumn or spring election.

[Bruce Mackie]

Well Louise,I do not know why you are posting in this forum. If however you happen to be Tory party member then you are surely not one of long standing and one with whom we can do well without. I am a true Tory and am deeply concerned at certain happenings in the choosing of candidates. Anyone putting themselves forward for selection should at least have shown a strong committment to the Party and not one just plucked out of thin air because it might appeal to non Tory voters.It will not work in the long term.

[malcolm]

I bow to your huge experience Stefan but hope and believe that you might yet be wrong.
I had thought when he became leader which he's had a huge amount of time to prepare that Brown would 'hit the ground running' with some sparkling policy initatives,some grat ideas and a real sense that things would 'change' after the Blair years.
But where are they? The majority of the same faceless goons who made up the Blair cabinet are still there (albeit apart from our part time Defence Sec in different jobs), we've had a commitment to build many more homes which are completely uncosted and which Hazel Blears was forced to lie about when she said it would not affect the green belt, and very mixed messages on our relationship with the US.And,...that's it.Is that really all he's going to offer?
I do agree with you that Brown has had more positive press and Camerons has often been horrible over the past few weeks.
Trips like the one to Rwanda are I think a mistake but I'd be very suprised if Murdoch and the other magnates have made up their minds already.

[Dave Bartlett]

"There are signs that Cameron is now looking to offer a more substantial reason for voting. "

I think that's a little unfair. Mr Cameron has been trying to engage the public in political debate through Webcameron (it seems to have been overrun by conspiracy theorists and Lib-Dems for some reason).

The Stand Up, Speak Up microsite, is an evolution of that, not a year zero moment.

[Edison Smith]

“the next Conservative Prime Minister will be William Hague”.

This highlights how uniformed most journalists and those involved in newspapers actually are.

Hague has said a number of times he would never return to being leader, and has been adamant about that. He has himself said he no longer has the level of commitment required, nor is he prepared to put himself through that wringer.

And judging by the amount of militant, salivating anti-Cameronism on this site, who would want to put themselves in a similar position to be disparaged and pilloried?? He's already done so once!

The Tory party is more or less unleadable. Cameron's got the toughest job in UK politics.

[David Sergeant]

The Brown bounce will only last as long as the Conservative party want it. Brown's "policies" to the extent they are coherent (funny Davies called Cameron's foriegn policy a shambles when Brown didn't have one and still, aparantly, hasn't) are ill thought out spin. Brown could be sorted quickly if necessary. E.g. the bit about the Ealing candidate was probably a damage limitation excercise by Labour - since Tories havn't the confidence to put their point solidly they got away with it but also Brown/Labour can usually rely on even the Telegraph to go in to a blue funk and breathlessly repeat Labour's spin.

It's just a matter of loyalty and guts, sorry the Tory party has been short of both for some time.

[Philip]

I wonder if David Cameron was the answer to Tony Blair, and hence the preoccupation of appearance over substance. Now we have Mr Brown, a man as seen as having seriousness and substance. However, I hope Mr Shakespeare is right that DC is now looking for more substantial reasons to vote Conservative. Maybe the IDS report on mending a broken society will help – substantial policies there to tackle an issue that seems to concern voters – many seem to be aware there is something radically wrong in our society. This compares with Labour still clinging onto outdated politically correct ideas of favouring all lifestyle choices over the one that works best – marriage - ideas that have been seen to so miserably fail.

[Michael Howard]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN BY THE EDITOR FOR IMPERSONATION AND THE IP ADDRESS OF THE USER BANNED.

[robert henry]

I have read all the newspaper comments over the past few wks. But noone properly puts forward the real reason i did not expect Cameron to succeed, viz. the 'toff' factor. It is impossible to call for social responsibility, and saying you care about the poor if you are a millionaire with a privileged lifestyle. Unless you can prove that apart from a short job as PR, you have taken a charitable interest in helping the poor {instead of a hedonistic lifestyle,} during your life, you will never come over as genuine. Simple as that !
If D.Davis had been the leader and said the same things, everyone would have believed him. Blair never attacked Cameron in any way and seemed to approve of him. But against Brown, even if he excels at QT, he comes over as childish and insincere. Brown will win the next election whenever it is an deserves to. Cameron will be dumped in the usual way. How sad for a once grea party and where can us rightwingers turn ? We need a split in th CP and form a new one.

[Dan Buckner]

nearby horrormongering illuminating vesicle salmonoid flighted ivorywood fiddleback
J.W. Rutherford Builder, Inc.
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/infidel.html