ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

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.

David Cameron focuses on Labour incompetence

Later today David Cameron will mark the day on which Gordon Brown had planned to hold a General Election with a big picture speech.  There's nothing dramatically new in it - just a skillful bringing together of key themes including the idea that we are seeing a change in the tide of ideas every bit as significant as 1979 and 1997.  You can read a PDF of the whole speech here.  The most important passage is, I think, the one targeting Labour's incompetence:

"After ten years in power, it seems they still haven’t mastered that fairly basic requirement of government – running the country competently.  The shambles over immigration.  The fiasco over prisoner releases.  The first run on a bank for over a hundred years.  U turns every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  This latest shambles over immigration shows exactly why we need a new government.  It’s not just because Gordon Brown has no vision for the future.  It’s because this government is incompetent.   They try to run everything but they can’t actually run anything.  Their whole philosophy is about top-down control, but on this vital issue of migration, they’ve lost control.  No wonder people are saying it’s time for change."

A reputation for incompetence is, I think, much more politically deadly than a reputation for sleaze.  Most voters don't have much faith in politicians' ethics but they hope for basic competence.  If we can destroy Labour's reputation for competence - and we have more and more ammunition - we have a good chance of finally ending the Brown-Blair years. 

Tory poster to mark the non-election

David Cameron will give a speech tomorrow in his constituency to mark the day that should have been a General Election.  Ben Brogan also has this poster which the Tories have launched to mark the non-election.  Clever.  It follows yesterday's All Trick, No Treat poster stunt.

11pm: A number of commenters below - Chad Noble first - have noted a stupid error in this poster.  The poster promises that "A vote on the European Constitution" has been delayed until the election of a Conservative Government.  This is not, of course, Tory policy with Hague and Cameron both refusing to say whether the party will grant a referendum should the Treaty be ratfied.  I'm sure someone at CCHQ will find a lawyerly way of wriggling out of this poster gaffe but this will draw more attention to an issue that is likely to cause some discomfort for the party in coming months.

Chicken Saturday cost Labour £1m

Every British taxpayer is familiar with Gordon Brown's wasteful use of their money.  Conservative activists won't be too surprised - or saddened - to read this morning's Guardian exclusive that Mr Brown wasted £1m of Labour's own money on aborted election preparations.

Much of the money, according to David Hencke who unearthed the figures, was spent on polling in marginal seats - undertaken by Opinion Leader Research.  This further undermines the case - if proof was needed - that the PM was being less than honest when he said that opinion polls were not a factor in his decision to call the election off.

The Guardian estimates that the Conservatives only spent one-fifth of Labour's outlay on preparations.  Much of the Tory spend was on reserving advertising hoardings and those hoardings are now going to be used for the party's campaign on the EU Treaty.

TORY SUPPORT HIGHEST FOR FIFTEEN YEARS

One week after Labour's Black Saturday, an ICM survey for tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph puts the Conservatives on 43%; 7% ahead of Labour.

ICM haven't put the Conservatives at such a level since before Black Wednesday, in 1992.

Such a result would give David Cameron's Conservatives a single figure majority in the Commons.  The LibDems would lose the majority of their seats.

Voters are equally split (41%) on whether Brown was right to call off the election.

66% of voters tell ICM that they want a referendum on the EU Treaty.  By 47% to 29% they would reject the Treaty in such a referendum.  Most voters (56% to 38%) would vote to stay in the EU although a small majority (52%) of Conservatives would vote to leave.

First poll after Brown's non-election announcement gives Conservatives a 3% lead

I have not had this poll confirmed authoritatively but it comes from a usually good source. This Ipsos-MORI survey for The Sun suggests that the lead identified by YouGov at the weekend has been maintained.  The Blackpool party conference bounce has hardened because of the effect of 'Brown's Black Saturday'.  More in the morning...

8.15am update:

• 47% think Gordon Brown was right not to hold an autumn election; 42% think he was wrong.
• 58% thought Brown would make the best PM back in September versus just 17% for David Cameron.  The gap has now narrowed to 45% over 29%.
• Gordon Brown's trustworthy rating has tumbled from +17 in August to +5 whilst David Cameron's rating has risen from -14 to +4.

More in The Sun.

The Sun Says column recommends that Gordon Brown turns things round by "responding to fears about ballooning taxes and wasteful spending" and by honouring a pledge to hold a referendum on the EU Treaty.

Your views on the non-election

What stopped the autumn election?

Which shadow cabinet minister performed best during the crucial period?

What should the Conservatives do next?

Click here to have your say in a special ConservativeHome.com readers' survey on the 'non-election'.

The Montgomerie family focus group

Over-interpretation of events is a real problem of our novelty-obsessed media.  After recent events nearly all commentators within the Westminster village would be well-advised to avoid any rushes to judgement.  Me included.  At the start of the year there was media-encouraged despair in the Labour Party at the prospect of Brown succeeding Blair.  Then over the summer, during Brown's first 90 or so days, he was unbeatable.  Just ten days ago - pre-Blackpool - the consensus was that the Tories were heading for a big defeat.  At the weekend, the view was that Brown had badly damaged his brand and may never recover his reputation.  But the last two days have seen Labour fightback with big announcements on Iraq and tax.  Will it be a credible fightback?

Turning away from the Westminster beltway I rang three members of my family for advice yesterday evening.  [I'm the only one of my extended family who has any enthusiastic interest in politics].  I asked each of them 'what was the most important thing to have happened in politics over the last few days?'

Montgomerie A's view: "At long last most of our troops are coming out of Iraq."

Montgomerie B's view: "Gordon chickened out of an election."

Montgomerie C's view: "The Tory inheritance tax promise has been stolen by Brown so at least we know it will happen."

I suppose the Montgomerie views are as valid as any focus group.  My guess (and fear) is that Ratner Saturday may mean a lot less to voters than some of us Conservatives hope.  What will matter more, in the long-term, are the underlying changes to the nation's security and prosperity.  It may be that the most significant news of recent days was confirmation that households' real disposable incomes are now being very tightly squeezed.  Tories need to avoid being triumphalist about Brown's decision not to call an election but we can't neglect its importance.  We need to carefully frame a new image of Brown in the public mind.  David Cameron can make an important contribution to that framing at PMQs today.  ConservativeHome will be live blogging the exchanges from noon and, yes, will be rushing to an instant judgment on who won the exchanges by 12.31pm.

'Labour's inner circle is in meltdown'

Great insidery article by Rachel Sylvester in today's Telegraph about divisions within Team Brown:

"For years, so much attention was paid to the TB/GBs that nobody noticed the GB/GBs, but now the splits in the Brown camp are starting to emerge. Downing Street civil servants, observing it all from the high ground of political neutrality, say, privately, that the inner circle is in meltdown.  Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander are all desperately trying to avoid being blamed. "They're fighting like ferrets in a sack," says one senior MP.

One minister even thinks we are already seeing the start of a leadership battle. "This is all about themselves and not about the Labour Party at all, they are thinking Gordon will be gone soon and they're the heirs, they're acting like presidential candidates.  "One of the reasons this election stuff got so out of hand was because they all wanted to be able to claim credit for the victory."

There has, clearly, been a generational divide between the "young turks" and the "grey beards" over the timing of the election. More significant, however, is a genuine political disagreement between what you could call the Martians and Venusians in the Brownite solar system.

The first category, led by Mr Balls and backed by more junior figures such as Ian Austin, Mr Brown's Parliamentary aide, sees politics as a fight to the death in which they must destroy their opponents. They operate through dividing lines and aim to use facts and figures to brilliant effect. It is no coincidence that Mr Balls's Department for Children, Schools and Families is reviewing the way in which grammar school ballots are run – a clear attempt to exploit Tory divisions on the theme.

The Venusians, who include Mr Alexander and the Miliband brothers, are less macho. They wouldn't mind killing off the Tories but that is not their primary aim. They have a more emotional approach to politics: they want to enthuse the voters with positive reasons to vote Labour as well. For them it is more important to convey a sense of optimism than to smash their opponents to bits.

The truth is that the tensions in the camp reflect the divisions within Gordon Brown himself.  He is both Big Clunking Fist and Moral Visionary."

After years of 'Tory splits' stories it's good to see focus on Labour's internal divisions.

William Hill has the betting on next Labour Leader: 1/1 D Miliband, 8/1 H Benn, 8/1 A Johnson, 10/1 E Miliband, 12/1 F Balls, 14/1 Y Cooper, 14/1 H Harman, 14/1 D Alexander, 14/1 A Darling, 16/1 J Smith, 20/1 J Denham, 25/1 D Browne, 33/1 R Kelly, 33/1 J Parnell, 33/1 A Milburn, 50/1 J Straw, 50/1 C Clarke.

There's also the looming Huhne-Clegg showdown although Guido thinks we shouldn't be talking about it.  So shush everyone!

George Osborne's finest seven days

As noted on Friday, George Osborne's inheritance tax announcement was crucial to the success of last week.  It was cleverly-framed.  Only millionaires would pay IHT under a Tory government and the raising of the threshold to £1m would be pay for by a £25,000pa tax on non-doms.

The Shadow Chancellor has also had a good weekend.  He has been all over the media over the last 48 hours - performing the role that the Party Chairman might have been expected to perform - and hasn't put a foot wrong.

Mr Osborne has written for today's London Evening Standard and these two paragraphs sum up his argument: 

"I cannot think of a recent example of when a Prime Minister has looked so weak and so cynical. For weeks his close cronies have been whipping the election speculation. Key Government announcements on Iraq, health, transport and the economy were deliberately brought forward to provide a springboard into the campaign. Instead of focusing on running the country, Mr Brown spent his time trying to spin his way into an election.

And wasn't the way the Prime Minister broke the news revealing? No open press conference, no live interviews with different news organisations, just a pre-recorded package with one Sunday morning show. Even then he could not be straight with people. He pretended that the polls and the strong message from the Conservatives had nothing to do with his humiliating backdown, and a clutch of embarrassed Cabinet ministers are still trailing around in his wake parroting similar nonsense."

I still believe that he should be Chairman and General Election coordinator, rather than Shadow Chancellor, but he deserves warm praise for his performances over the last seven days.

Highlights of Brown's press conference

Not verbatim unless in quotation marks...

Overall view: The mood was sour.  There has definitely been a cooling in the relationship between the lobby and the PM.

PM confirms that he will not sit down at an EU table with Robert Mugabe and no "senior minister" will attend either.

The Sun asks a question about Brown's failure to hold a referendum on the EU Treaty.

12.50pm: Brown tells a joke!  Asked about the rugby he says that he's been inclined to read the sports pages more than the news pages in recent days.

It's 12.35pm and I've counted seven questions from BBC journalists.

Daisy McAndrew: Why did you make the announcement in the peculiar way you did?

Radio 1 Newsbeat journalist: You dithered in 1994 about the Labour leadership race.  You have dithered again, haven't you?

Brown in response to a question from Channel 4's Gary Gibbon: Hand on heart I can say that the opinion polls did not determine my decision to not have an election.  A 2008 General Election would be "very unlikely".

Tom Brady, ITN: Why don't you admit that you changed your mind after it looked like you'd lose the election?

Great line from Nick Robinson, BBC: "When the polls turned, you turned."  Ouch.

Iain Dale is running a comprehensive live blog.

Brown's Ratner Saturday and how David Cameron fought back

I've written for The Guardian's Comment is free website about the election cancellation and its implications.  Part of the article appears in the main newspaper but the whole text is republished below...

"Was it Black Saturday for Brown?  Yellow Saturday?  Or Ratner Saturday?  The blogosphere has thrown up a huge variety of names to mark the day on which Brown threw away his reputation for strength and seriousness.  For me, the Ratner adjective gets closest to what happened.  The Prime Minister trashed his own brand – cannibalising years of hard work in which he had tried to persuade the British people that, although dull, he was a responsible patriot who always put country before party.  Yesterday, as he answered Andrew Marr’s rather feeble questions, he looked a hugely diminished figure.  Did he really expect people to believe that the deteriorating opinion polls weren’t the real reason he was abandoning his very advanced plans for an autumn election?  As David Cameron said, Brown was treating the British people as if they were fools.

If the last few weeks have been a terrible Alexander-Balls-up for Brown, they have been the making of David Cameron.  Even a week ago Conservative MPs were talking privately about the next Conservative leadership race.  The morale of many Tory MPs neatly tracks the party’s opinion poll rating and last week’s 11% leads for Labour had brought about a return of the parliamentary party’s ‘Messiah complex’.  ‘Who will save us?’ was their cry.  David Cameron saved them.

For nearly two years the Conservative leader had been following an unbalanced strategy. He had attempted to change the Conservative Party’s base when he should have been trying to broaden it.  He had neglected the concerns of core supporters.  Key electoral weapons – on tax, immigration and crime – had been taken out of use by those now famous über-modernisers.  The opinion polls showed that the strategy wasn’t succeeding.  Morale of activists was at rock bottom.  The Telegraph and Mail were constantly publishing pieces that were unhelpful to the Conservative leadership.  If Brown had held a genuinely snap election – in, say, September - he would have won a decisive victory.

But Mr Brown dithered and the Tories had time to plot a fight back.  The fight back began experimentally with a heavy emphasis on crime in late August.  That produced a opinion poll boost.  It was also a confirmation of the Conservative HQ theory that the Conservatives do well whenever David Cameron is in the news.

For the last week David Cameron has been constantly in the news and Brown’s election scheme served to unite the party, rather than panic it.  There was universal and genuine anger amongst Tory members at the cynical way in which Brown used British troops for last Tuesday’s photo opportunity.  Cameron repaid this new spirit of party unity by announcing cuts in taxation, serious welfare reform and new legal powers to stop any further flow of powers to Brussels.  He did all of this whilst maintaining the majority of his modernisation measures.  It’s true that much of the Gummer-Goldsmith plan to unilaterally save the planet has been ditched but Cameron will defend and deepen other changes.  On candidate diversity, gay rights, commitment to the public services and, above all else, a new one nation emphasis on fighting poverty, David Cameron is clearly a very different and more mainstream politician than Michael Howard.

The only cloud on the Tory horizon is that Britain’s third party, languishing on just 11% in one opinion poll, now has the time and opportunity to replace Menzies Campbell.  In our bleaker moments of recent times, we’ve been able to draw consolation from our strength in southern contests against the Liberal Democrats.  It will now be interesting to see if Mr Campbell falls on his sword or whether Teams Clegg and Huhne will show the kind of courage that the Prime Minister so clearly lacks."

The other two CiF posts highlighted by The Guardian were one from Lance Price urging Gordon Brown to escape from Tony Blair's shadow and another from Martin Kettle calling for more strategy and less tactics from the Prime Minister.

It was Fox wot stopped it

From today's Times:

"David Cameron and George Osborne have won the plaudits for overturning Labour’s lead and stopping an early general election. But it was Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, who did the most personal damage to Gordon Brown and left him regretting that he had ever allowed speculation about an autumn election to get so dangerously out of control.

Conservative activists woke up in Blackpool last Tuesday to the sight of Mr Brown gladhanding British troops in Basra. Tuesday was defence-debate morning at the conference and Dr Fox was centre stage. He was outraged at what he saw as Mr Brown’s election stunt. It is always risky to attack politicians when they visit the Forces overseas, and apparently no senior military had any quarrel with Mr Brown’s trip. But Dr Fox dared, and won. He took to the airwaves lambasting Mr Brown for using soldiers as election pawns.

When the news of the Tory attack trickled back to Iraq, the reaction in the Brown team was shock and fury. The trip had been planned for some time to help Mr Brown to make his Commons statement on Iraq and neither he nor anyone with him was ready for the Tory onslaught. Mr Brown had spent three months building up his patriotic credentials and here they were being torn to shreds.

The Times understands that it was at that moment that the Prime Minister began to harbour very serious doubts about the way he - and he knows that the responsibility is his - had allowed the build-up of hints about an autumn election to go unchecked."

Bruce Anderson has his own take on the Iraq trip: "A strong leader does not grovel in the small print of the opinion polls. An honest and caring leader would not have done what he did over the troop movements from Basra... The mothers, wives and girlfriends of serving soldiers are condemned to long periods of strain. The men in the field have duties to distract them, comradeship to sustain them and hard days to ensure that, when there is time to sleep, it comes easily. The women at home have little to protect them from long, anxious hours followed by turning and tossing sleeplessness, interspersed with bad dreams. The doorbell rings: pray God it is not the chaplain. So when the waiting women heard that a thousand men were to come home for Christmas, there would have been widespread joy. Surely my Johnny will be one of them? Then it turned out that 770 out of the thousand had either been notified of their departure or were already back in Britain."  Read the full article in The Independent.  For Mr Anderson it was Cameron's speech - "no party leader has ever delivered a more successful speech than Mr Cameron did on Wednesday" - wot stopped it.

Related links on 'wot stopped it':

• The Tory surge was 90% policy and only 10% speechifying says Stephan Shakespeare
• Lower taxation is back in fashion
• It's the News of the World wot stopped it

Black Saturday? Yellow Saturday? Ratner Saturday?

I've tagged yesterday's (and today's) threads as 'Labour's Black Saturday'.  I'm hoping that it will be as iconic a setback for Brown as Black Wednesday was for John Major.

The alternative 'Yellow Saturday' suggestion captures the weakness and cowardice of yesterday's decision by the Prime Minister.

Or, another idea that was left on a PoliticalBetting.com thread, 'Ratner Saturday' - the day that Brown trashed his own brand - undermining years of nurturing a reputation for strength and seriousness.

What's your favourite of the three?  Or do you have a better idea...?

Cameron: Brown is treating the British people like fools

I fear I'm about to ruin any slim chance I ever had of being invited on to the Sunday AM sofa but you can see why Gordon Brown chose Andrew Marr for the 'election ain't going to happen' announcement.  The questioning never put the Prime Minister on the spot in the way that the occasion demanded.  The Prime Minister has behaved self-indulgently and his explanation for not having an election was plainly dishonest.  Andrew Marr never found a way of voicing what all viewers were thinking.  We did, nonetheless, learn the following:

• Gordon Brown said that he had a duty to consider an autumn election because of representations made by opposition parties and his own advisers.
• He told Mr Marr that Labour could have won an autumn election but the country deserves to see his vision for the country and his implementation of it.
• A General Election in 2008 would be "very unlikely".
• The Tory proposal on IHT would have left a £5bn "black hole" in the nation's finances but he did not rule out making changes to the tax so that it is levied at a fair level.
• Tomorrow's Iraq statement will be wider in scope than a simple restatement of last Tuesday's bungled 'troops home by Christmas' announcement.

Also interviewed on the programme was David Cameron.  He concluded that yesterday's events would have a "fundamental" impact on politics.  People knew that Gordon Brown had not been straight with them.  He had tried to treat the British people like fools.  He wasn't going to the country because he feared that he'd lose.

The Conservative leader said that he was open to the possibility of fixed-term parliaments but he was not persuaded.  Tony Blair had promised to serve a full-term and hadn't.  It was right in those circumstances that Brown sought his own mandate.  Whatever the polls had been saying, the Tories had called for an election.

He defended his proposals on inheritance tax but insisted the party had a broad set of policies - including on the environment.

10.45am: Guido is also unimpressed with Mr Marr - Brown's poodle.

ConservativeHome credited with throwing Brown's announcement plans into disarray

Today's Observer:

"Brown's plans for his announcement were thrown into disarray when news of his decision was leaked to the Conservative Home website. This meant Cameron was able to broadcast his attack before Brown has a chance to explain himself on television. His interview with Marr was recorded in Downing Street yesterday afternoon for broadcast today. While Cameron's full remarks were broadcast last night, only short extracts of Brown's interview were broadcast on the 24-hour news channels."

While it is true that ConservativeHome was the first to emphatically declare the election was off, Danny Finkelstein's Comment Central blog appears to have speculated about the possibility 80 minutes earlier.  We'll take the credit, however, and a BBC source has told us that our post was a key trigger for the story breaking on their bulletins when it did. Proud to have helped.

Deputy Editor

11am: Danny Finkelstein has written for the first time since his post of yesterday and analyses what it means for  'in a lot of trouble' Brown.

It's the News of the World wot stopped it?

More details of the ICM/ News of the World poll:

• 77% disapprove of Labour's record on immigration.
• 63% of its law and order performance.
• 62% disapprove of Labour  on tax.
• More than half (52%) give Labour the thumbs down on the NHS.

The NotW leader offers advice to David Cameron:

"The Tories' alluring promise of stamp duty and inheritance tax cuts has resonated with a public tired of overbearing taxation and weary of not being able to get on the housing ladder. We have long believed that a party of smaller government, less bureaucracy and lower taxes is a winning party."

Earlier this evening, on Channel 4 News, George Osborne insisted that the tax announcements were only a part of the reason for the Tory fightback.  He also credited David Cameron's speech - which the NotW notes "had a considerable impact" - and the overall message of the party on the NHS and education.  What is clear and welcome, however, is that lower taxation is back at the heart of the Conservative pitch.

BROWN CANNIBALISED HIS OWN PRINCIPAL ADVANTAGES:

What are the blogs saying?

James Forsyth wonders if Peter Mandelson and other Blairites will soon reappear, offering helpful advice as to how Mr Brown might recover from this.  Let's hope so!

Confirmation of Sky's anger at the Marr exclusive, Adam Boulton writes: "The great clunking fist has given himself a blackeye tonght as Gordon Brown renounces his dreams of a Snap General Election."

A comment on LabourHome: "What a calamity.  I'm glad there isn't an election as there shouldn't have been one - but there should never have been this mess either.  The Tories have had a great victory here and the Prime Minister looks at best an opportunist and at worst, a coward.  What would be even more damaging to Gordon's respect in my view is that if some minion gets the blame for this. Gordon is the leader - he allowed this to happen and he damn well better take it on the chin."

Iain Dale and Guido have fun at the expense of Brown's recent book title - 'Courage'.

Wat Tyler reflects on the costs to the taxpayer of all Brown's pre-non-election bribes.

EU Referendum reminds us that there's a referendum to fight for.

11pm: Ed Vaizey, restarting his blog, writes: "The last hundred days, carefully crafting an image of a man that can control events and handle a crisis, have been for naught.  The public have seen Gordon Brown bottle it, in the most spectacular and public fashion.  There will be a lot of Blairites quietly muttering “this is what we put up with for a decade”.  A wry smile may even have played across Tony’s face.  A guffaw will have emerged from Cherie."

The Marr exclusive was Brown's second big mistake

If allowing election fever to get out of control was mistake numero uno, giving the exclusive to Andrew Marr was Gordon Brown's second big mistake.

Sky and ITN are furious and that's reflected in their coverage.

But Mr Brown doesn't appear to have endeared himself to Nick Robinson, BBC Political Editor either.

Here are some key lines from Nick Robinson's report to Radio 4's Six'o'clock news (not verbatim - although close - unless in quotation marks):

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear", the ability to choose the timing of an election is one of the strongest weapons in a Prime Minister's armory and somehow Gordon Brown has contrived to turn the weapon upon himself - "wounding both his reputation and the morale of his party".

...Let's be clear, speculation was not the right word to describe what had happened.  The Prime Minister's key allies were sanctioned to plan for an election, to talk about it publicly and official government business was moved.  "These are facts - not mere Westminster gossip".

..."This will be a huge morale boost to the Tories" who, in truth, were putting on a brave face when they called on Mr Brown to bring it on...

"For now though it is enough to say that not since Jim Callaghan's joke about waiting at the church has a Prime Minister caused himself so much political damage so unnecessarily."

8.35pm: CWO has recorded Adam Boulton's unhappiness.

Greg Hands MP has just txted me with two great msgs

1. This will be the only ever news event that Gordon Brown doesn't reannounce.

2. James Purnell won't want to be in the picture of Brown's Andrew Marr interview. 

+ Guido now thinks Brownites should now be known as Brownies ;-)

Will the 11% LibDems take this opportunity to oust Ming?

Channel 4 has just revealed that a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times puts the Conservatives 3% ahead of Labour.  The real movement is in the collapse of the LibDems, however.  Will Messrs Huhne and Clegg have the courage to act?

Added on Sunday morning:

Cameron: Brown has shown great weakness and indecision

7pm: What the Tory leader said:

“The reason why the Prime Minster has cancelled this election is because the Conservative Party is making the arguments about changes this country needs and people are responding very positively to our proposals.  He has shown great weakness and indecision - it is quite clear that he has not been focused on running the country and he has been trying to spin his way into a General Election campaign, he has now had to make a humiliating retreat.  The big disappointment for me, and I think for millions of people in the country, is that we now have to wait for a possible two years before we can get the real change we need in our country - change to improve our NHS, change to raise standards in schools, change to give people opportunity in their lives.  The Prime Minister says he has a vision for change - well put that vision to people in a General Election - this is not a vision for change, this is just a strategy to cling to office.”

Click continue to see the evidence for how Brown built himself up for this fall, compiled by CCHQ...

The fallout

5.55pm: Portillo says that Brown has gone from walking on water to being sunk.  The Sun's Trevor Kavanagh says Brown has committed a huge unforced error. 

5.45pm: Join the Facebook group - Brown is a bottler

5.14pm: Andrew Marr, who has just interviewed Gordon Brown, tells BBC News 24, that Gordon Brown has more or less ruled out an election in 2008 as well as this autumn.

5.10pm: Absolutely 100% confirmed.  Brown has told BBC that election is off. 

5pm: Steve Richards of The Independent is accusing Brown of having made a "colossal mistake".  Kevin Macquire is saying that all of this episode has only served to unite the Tories.  John McDonnell MP says that Labour will now be seen as the party of spin again.  Can't disagree with any of that.

4.46pm: News of the World/ ICM survey gives the Conservatives a 6% lead in the 83 most marginal seats.  This would easily deprived Gordon Brown of his majority.  Fraser Nelson has more here.  Andrew Marr must savage Brown on this.  He must not be allowed to say that the electoral register was the reason for him not going to the country.  He's not going to the country because he knows he would lose.

4.30pm: Sky is reporting that Brown intends to blame the electoral register for his decision to delay. It has nothing to do with polls that will show Labour doing badly against the conservatives tomorrow. Oh no.

4.30pm: Ming Campbell - quick as a flash on BBC News 24 accuses Brown of losing his nerve.  Brown, he says, has traded on his strength, statesmanlike qualities and the end of spin but he's thrown all of those qualities away.  With no autumn election the LibDems may, of course, take the opportunity to ditch Ming.  In recent weeks his party was squeezed - first by Brown and then by Cameron.

AUTUMN ELECTION IS OFF

There will be no autumn election.  The Clucking fist is about to pre-record an interview with Andrew Marr.

There are rumours of new polling containing bad news for Labour with the trends of recent days accelerating.

Ben Brogan was right and I'll be buying lunch.

Back to the rugby...

3.50pm: The BBC is now reporting the story.