Cameron 'prayed' that Brown wouldn't hold autumn 2007 election

David Cameron on Monday night reflected on this time last year:

"William Hague warned me that if he was smart, Gordon would go for a snap election in early October, just after the conferences - and that he would win.  So I spent the whole summer just hoping and praying that he wouldn't go for it."

Quoted by Rosa Prince.

Comments

[John]

He was not the only one!!!

[Andrew Bradley]

Lets be honest - didn't we all. Anyone who says the opposite was a dreamer. At this stage,the electorate hadn't rumbled Brown. What surprises me is that it took so long.

The good Lord must have been looking down on us and surely any true Conservative must have had a sense of elation when Heathcliff announced at that week-end? that there would not be a General Election. Hooks and being let off come to mind.

He gave a typically disingenuous reason for not holding one which was simply a load of bo....ks.

[brian]

Of course Brown was a fool not to hold an election in his honeymoon period.

Anybody who watches politics for any length of time knows that it is far, far more likely that a prime minister's popularity will decline with time than to go up. There would never, ever be a better time than to do it than during his honeymoon. Then in five years time call another one just after the olympics and (assuming a feel-good factor) get another 5 years.

He has a reputation for being a clever man and a smart politican. All I see is a second rate schemer with no nerve.

[sbjme19]

Particularly as voters seemed to believe that single-handedly he'd disarmed the terrorists, stopped the floods and cured the foot and mouth. Fortunately this illusion did n't last long.

[Michael Taylor]

So congrats to all those who worked their b---s off to make the 2007 Conference such a success - the Inheritance Tax announcement provided real momentum, which we must not now lose. In my view it was the success of DC et al at Blackpool that caused Heathcliff to lose his nerve

[Roberts]

Gordon's big mistake was to allow the "possibility" of a November election to continue. Not for one moment did I think that anyone wanted a November Election with dark evening, poor weather etc - it was a non-starter that got out of hand and did the PM immense damage !

[Serf]

It just goes to show that The Almighty did not want to visit 5 years of plague and famine upon the land and so he listened to the pleas of brother Cameron.

Our sins can't be too great.

[Leon Steed]

Wasn't the election called off in October as Gordon Brown needed more time to set forward his vision and deliver on it before an election?

However, he doesn't seem to be making terribly good use of that extra time as it's now almost ten months later and does anyone have any better idea of what his vision actually is?

[Richard]

Am I the only one to find Cameron's comments rather odd, not to mention rather foolish?

Of course Cameron did not want Brown to call an election, if he had done we would have lost and who knows what would have happended. Why though did Cameron feel the need to articulate these views? I say this as it makes him look rather silly. He has spent the best part of a year mocking Brown for not calling an election and actually egging him on to call an election, when all the time Cameron did not want him to call an election and was actually happy that he did not call an election.

Cameron should think before he opens his mouth. Imagine the exchange:

DC: "This is the man who bottled it and would not hold an election."

GB: "Why do you keep going on about this issue. You yourself are on record as saying you did not actually want me to call one."

[Praguetory]

I agree with Richard. When in opposition, you should ALWAYS want an election. Besides, look how the polls moved on the most insignificant of announcements by George Osborne on tax. A Novemeber election would have been a disaster for Labour at best.

On the other hand, if we had taken power we could have done little in the following 6 months to avert the economic crisis we are entering as a country.

If we win in 2010 following or during a recession we will have far more political capital to make the actual long term changes that are needed to get UK plc back on a competitive footing.

[Mike Wood]

There was a definite change in mood during last year's Conference. On the Sunday evening, everybody was dreading the prospect of a snap election an journalists were circling the hotel bars trying to find signs that the Party was about to tear itself apart.
By the Wednesday, most people were hoping (or at least half-hoping) that Brown would go ahead and call the election.

[Clockwork Mouse]

Shows that Cameron does not mean what he says.

[Serf]

Cameron is winding Gordon up. Thats all there is to it.

Gordon Brown must be very demoralised and Dave is doing his best to make hime feel even worse.

[Kate]

I wonder if David Cameron actually prays?

[Louise Bagshawe]

I remember at the time writing a piece that said "bring on the General Election" and being vilified as indulging in empty bravado (I am a PPC in the marginal seat of Corby).

It really wasn't bravado. I was convinced at the time that we would have won an autumn election. Our team here was defiant and ready to fight. The election campaign period itself would have contrasted Cameron and Brown to the former's advantage. We had also just recently seen a county council by-election with a significant Lab-Con swing in Corby itself.

My feeling is we would have done far better than the opinion polls predicted.

[brian]

Kate said: "I wonder if David Cameron actually prays?"

Let's hope not. Blair did enough praying for everyone and left us the divise legacy of faith schools thanks to his religious mania.

[Dale]

"Let's hope not. Blair did enough praying for everyone and left us the divise legacy of faith schools thanks to his religious mania."

Mrs Thatcher was a practising methodist, and I doubt anyone would say her premiership was dogged by 'religious mania'.

BTW We support faith schools.

[London Tory]

The mood in my area at that time did not feel good. Useful idiots like Mercer and Bercow, along with Paul Dacre in the Daily Mail, were not helping by creating this "Brown Tory" chimera. The big turning point was George Osborne's Conference announcement on IHT , which put us on the political front foot for the first time since we were forced out of the ERM.

Since then Brown's manifest and numerous weaknesses have been happily exposed for all to see.

[London Tory]

The mood in my area at that time did not feel good. Useful idiots like Mercer and Bercow, along with Paul Dacre in the Daily Mail, were not helping by creating this "Brown Tory" chimera. The big turning point was George Osborne's Conference announcement on IHT , which put us on the political front foot for the first time since we were forced out of the ERM.

Since then Brown's manifest and numerous weaknesses have been happily exposed for all to see.

[Goldie]

Correct, correct. There were many here who were calling for an election at the time, but I was sure Brown would have won it.

Brown made a very serious mistake, as I said at the time. In not calling the autumn election he probably sealed his fate.

There you have it: it all comes down to individuals and their decisions.

[Goldie]

@Michael Taylor:
You're very right. The conference was very important -- and most important of all: the TAX CUT promise.

DC certainly took note of that. That's why Peter Oborne's article the other day was much closer to the mark than the Editor admitted.

[brian]

dale said: "BTW We support faith schools."

... and what a mistake they will turn out to be. Expect an increase in ghettoisation.

Anything that stops children mixing with others and finding out that Christian / Muslim / Jewish / Bhuddist / Other kids don't eat babies and are actually human is a bad thing.

If you're in any doubt go to Northern Ireland where they tried it for several decades and look at the effect of separate schooling for catholics and protestants.

[Hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_troubles ]

Learn how to hate your fellow man.....

[Yogi]

Gideon actually laid a trap with regards to IHT and non-doms and snared both Brown and Darling in one go.

When darling announced a half baked policy, and touted it as their own, the spotlight suddenly fell on the government and from that moment onwards it has been downhill for NuLab.

Added to it was Cameron's speech and the beeb could not find even a trace of disloyalty or dissent.

[John Wilkin]

Liam Fox scored a valuable goal when he questioned Gordon's motives for visiting Iraq during the Tory conference.

I suspect if Brown had held an election he'd have won, but it would only have prolonged his premiership by two years in the long run. Whether Cameron would have survived to fight another election is a harder question, but I suspect he would, purely because we've been through so many leaders in recent years the last thing the MPs would have wanted was another one