Is The Guardian gunning for Brown?

As PoliticalBetting.com reports this morning, The Guardian's front page treatment of their ICM poll will be very uncomfortable for Gordon Brown.  The newspaper's leader-writers encourage Labour MPs to "make sure" a challenge happens.

Political Betting's Mike Smithson's overall conclusion is that the poll is good for David Cameron:

"My interpretation of the poll is that this is not so much about Brown but about Cameron. The more the Tory leader is in the news the higher his poll ratings go. Conversely the more that Brown figures on the news agenda the worse it seems to get. The Chancellor certainly did not help himself with last week’s World Cup bid announcement."

The Sun calls the Tory poll lead "massive" and continues: "It is the first time a survey has projected Labour plunging so far in popularity it loses power.  The fall to 29 per cent puts them on a similar level to the dark days under Michael Foot’s shambolic leadership in the early 1980s."

Comments

[thatcherite]

It is obvious that the Guardianistas think that Brown is an election loser. The problem is that John Reid is the only alternative and he would be equally unacceptable to English middle class voters.

David Cameron is also benefiting from the awful performance of Ming Campbell and Vince Cable. Conservative support is inflated as a result.

If Nick Clegg was to lead the Lib Dems, he would take support from the Conservatives and Labour. The formidable Davis Laws as Shadow Chancellor would make mincemeat of lightweight George Osborne.

All three main parties would be very close in the polls. The Lib Dem's Orange Bookers must be viewed as a threat not as coalition partners.

[Simon Chapman]

An interesting post under the Guardian leader:

"Just think what will happen to these polls once the 'great clunking fist' starts clunking & clanking around missing targets left right & centre and Cameron enjoying a Mohammed Ali role of stinging like a bee.

Disaster!!! And interest rates seem due to take off as sterling falls..........oh dear.....Labour again- 1974?"

Cameron has already used the "clunking image" to attack Gordon Brown. It fits rather well with Brown's public persona. He does clunk - when he's not doing his McCavity disappearing act (which will be impossible as Prime Minister).

The question is, when Blair used the "great clunking fist" line - did he realise that it is a decidedly mixed compliment for Gordon Brown? Was this a very subtle knifing?

[Soupy Twist]

This seems to be in contrast with the January polls which showed us down a little bit and Lib Dems up a lot -- and with the hypothetical Brown-as-PM question providing some comfort to the Chancellor.

Now we're back to the end-of-2006 pattern which is better for us and worse for Lib Dems and Brown.

Could the January figures be explained by all the cash-for-honours stuff, which had the following effects:

a) Making the two big parties look sleazy (Labour's current disgrace, reminder of Tory sins past)

b) Boost to Lib Dems as the party untainted by power.

c) Knocking voter-friendly Mr Cameron off our screens.

Lessons to learned:

a) Don't attack Labour on sleaze -- let the hacks / Yates do it instead.

b) Take positive initiative on sleaze -- tight cap on party spending and big donations, no taxpayer subsidy.

c) Keep Cameron in the public eye.

[Angelo Basu]

I'd wager that 99%+ of the voting public wouldn't know an Orangebooker or what it entailed if they were whacked over the head by one. They'd be most likely to think it was some literary award.

[thatcherite]

Angelo Basu misses the point. It the Cameroons that are courting the Orange Bookers. The Cameroons do not think that the Conservatives can win an overall majority.

Nick Clegg would be a more attractive, especially to middle class voters, Lib Dem leader than Ming Campbell. He does not have Dave's Old Etonian and Bullingdon Club "baggage" that will put a lot of swing voters.

[HF]

This poll probably over eggs the figures in favour of Conservatives. I suspect the Blairites have lent on the Guardian to use headlines that are unhelpful to Gordon.

The reason maybe that a weaker Brown would mean more Blairites getting ministerial posts.

[Editor]

Even if that's true HF it underlines the possibility for internal conflict within the Labour party.

[Tory T]

This poll is about the top of our range and we can expect a lower number in ICM next time. The main change will come after May as Labour loses heart when its councillors are swept away.

I doubt any savvy Labourite would want the leadership now. They know whoever is in place in '09 will lose. The savvy move is to let Brown lose and then challenge.

[Chris]

I like the orangebookers, and I believe that eventually we will see some defections. On the whole, they are reasonable conservatives, and consequently they are disliked by the rest of their party.

In the last leadership election Oaten failed to gain much support even before the media frenzy over his sex life. Clegg would be a great electoral asset, but do you honestly think any of his sandal wearing colleagues and constituents would support him? I guess they might, so as to have a good looking front man, but he'd be a lame duck as any innovative policy ideas would soon be voted down at the party conference.

Well thats my 2 cents..

[malcolm]

Not sure what the Guardian leader writers are playing at.There is no obvious challenger within Labour ranks to Brown. Those who talk up the electoral appeal of David Milliband or John Reid are clutching at the thinnest of straws. As a Conservative I would be delighted if both stood against Brown and would hope that they had as brutal and bloody a battle as possible.

[Tory T]

Loyal ConHome-ers may want to hold their noses and pop over to LabourHome to read how our opponents are discussing this poll

Thread entitled "Poll gloom - Tories streaking ahead".

I fully anticipate our next ICM will be a little lower but the Labourites despairing discussion of PM Brown makes fascinating reading.

http://www.labourhome.org/story/2007/2/19/174645/654

[ToMTom]

It is so obvious by asking a personality-driven question rather than polling parties that Cameron is The Guardian's favoured son and they hope to keep him on their wavelength by setting him apart from his party - and seeking to induce Labour to find a leader more in tune with their agenda so they can keep The Guardian Project on the rails and prevent any conservativism from any quarter

[ToMTom]

It is so obvious by asking a personality-driven question rather than polling parties that Cameron is The Guardian's favoured son and they hope to keep him on their wavelength by setting him apart from his party - and seeking to induce Labour to find a leader more in tune with their agenda so they can keep The Guardian Project on the rails and prevent any conservativism from any quarter

[thatcherite]

Lib Dem activists are only interested in winning. If they think that a Clegg leadership will win the most seats, they will vote for him.

Clegg's only serious challenger is Chris Huene who has a very small majority in Eastleigh. Most activists would not want to see their Leader defeated at a general election.

It is only a matter of time before Ming resigns or is forced out. Until then, we are in a phoney war against Blair and Ming rather than Brown and Clegg.

The polls are therefore only of academic interest. The ones that matter will be in 2008 and 2009.

[George Hinton]

This is of course a stalinite view of democracy, just to ensure that the right messages are being disseminated, so that the right stitch-up is achieved at the appropiate time. Welcome to brave nu-lab world.

[Chris]

"Lib Dem activists are only interested in winning. If they think that a Clegg leadership will win the most seats, they will vote for him."

You'd think so, but then why did they elect Ming? Huhne does indeed have a slim majority, and hopefully one we can overturn, but as ever we all know how hard Lib Dems are to unseat upon election.

[Scotty]

"Not sure what the Guardian leader writers are playing at.There is no obvious challenger within Labour ranks to Brown."
Malcolm I agree with you regarding the fact that there is no alternative to Brown now.
He has been very busy these last 10 years making sure that no other likely contender would be in a position to seriously challenge him.
But although there may not be a challenger for Brown there is also not overwhelming support for him, and he has made many enemies. This guy has proved that he holds grudges and I think that this will damage his tenure at No10.
Gordon Brown does not have the character to be a good PM, he has avoided all tough interviews, hidden from view when Labour is under attack and has become a master at back room dealing. He did not have the guts to stand against Blair on his own domestic platform, instead he preferred to do a deal at a restaurant to gain control of domestic policy.
He has been more happy to foster a "personal relationship with Murdoch, Dacre and Co rather than with the public. His controlling nature means he only appears on programmes like Marr's where he get away with a personally controlled political broadcast.
He analysis every piece of data and needs a raft of "focus group findings" which can take weeks before he comes to a conclusion.
When he is PM events will often move faster than that, and he has be able to come out with an instinctive grasp of what is needed and what the public will warm to quickly and confidently. I think the guardian journalists want a leadership challenge because they like everyone else need to be confident that he has what it takes in a crisis. The fact that they are not sure after 10 years with a Brown chancellorship speaks volumes.
No one should underestimate the real value to the conservatives that our own 6 month leadership contest had with the public.
We had 5 politicians up there being scrutinised in leadership launches and conference speeches. When we narrowed it down to Cameron vs Davis, they both had the confidence and ability to go head to head on live TV or under the Paxman microscope.
Its taking the broadsheet media a while to realise that this political myth they have built up around Brown has no foundations, and they are now pushing for a contest to see if he can build some quickly before he moves into No10.

[Hardeep Panchhi]

if brown has the courage to go head to head with cameron on a live tv debate before the next election he wil be destroyed and the tory lead would be even more large than it si now. Lucky for labour then, that a shiver wonders their front bench trying to find a spine to run up

[changetowin]

Great news. We're only half way there, but no other leader would have taken us this far...

[EML]

Re Simon Chapman at 9.29, i'd love to believe that Blair really did intend the 'clunking fist' to be a double-edged metaphor, but I can't quite see it.

Regardless of Blair's intentions, I think it could be a great rhetorical weapon for us. The brash, clunking approach of Labour's big government versus a more subtle Conservative approach, with society and government working together.

If the polls produce these sorts of results up until the May elections, I can't see the Labour party committing suicide by allowing Brown in without a challenge.

[changetowin]

Great point EML. To all those who say we're not opposing enough - take heed! We may not be opposing the government in a clunking fist manner, but we have been developing ourselves as a real alternative with a positive vision AND copntrasting this with a strong critique about what is wrong with the Brown approach.

[Tory T]

It's significant that the Sun have chosen to spin it this positively, not concentrating on the headline figures.

[John Moss]

I watched the PMQs when Blair used the "great clunking fist" analogy and he was clearly a little lost for words just before he hit on this particular description of his colleague and friend Brown.

This suggests it is a genuine sentiment of how Blair sees Brown and is not exactly complimentary. My immediate thought was that Blair saw Brown as a "great clumsy oaf", likely to wreck the carefully and delicately constructed artifice of the Blair years, but that he was deflecting this on to Cameron in the vain hope the bull might do damage to Cameron first.

So not exactly complimentary, no.

[Simon Chapman]

I detect an 18DoughtyStreet attack ad - pick your favorite "Ker-lunk!!!" moment - we could have votes on it.

[David Belchamber]

Congratulations, Scotty at 13.16: you said it all, an excellent pen portrait of the good Gordon.

Could someone please remind me what price gold is now and also what Gordo got for half the country's reserves when he sold it off?

[IRJMilne]

The Guardianistas like Cameron, and have no particular affection for old Calvinistic Broon. The Guardian is often a sort of wooly soft right-wing, rather than being a left wing paper.

Terrible news about the world cup. More money appropriated to fund televised sport, doing little if anything for fitness, little or nothing for culture, nothing for mental fitness or...it's just part of the bread and circuses equation. Like the ever-more-expensive Olympics.

[Opinicus]

@David Belchamber
Could someone please remind me what price gold is now and also what Gordo got for half the country's reserves when he sold it off?

Yes indeed but why isn't little Osborne asking this question publicly? A man who has risen on principle - the Peter Principle.

[Scotty]

Jonathan, your petty comment would have more weight if George Osborne had not been David Cameron's campaign manager, the only shadow chancellor to get right up Gordon Brown's nose and who proved that the the political myth surrounding Brown has no foundations.
If you want to underestimate the conservative politician who proved that Gordon Brown was fallible, you go ahead.

[Scotty]

"A man who has risen on principle - the Peter Principle." As I pointed out @13:16, that title already belongs to the present incumbent in No11.

[R. Priddy]

Conservative repartee can be improved. Here is a fitting reply to Blair:

The ham-fisted giant
The "great clunking fist" is surely a giant's ham fist!
Fee-fi-fo-fum, Brown smells the blood of an Englishman.
Not a gentle giant, but one who'll tax any man Jack with an axe!