MORI put the Tories 24% ahead

The Guardian is reporting this evening that Brown was in bullish mood about Labour’s election chances as he talked to journalists on the long flight to China for the Olympics.

According to Deborah Summers he “..rejected Tory claims that it was now impossible for Labour to win the next election. “We are going to go on and win,” he said. “We are getting on with the job. You will find, as we get into September, that what the people of Britain are concerned about is what’s happening to their mortgages, what’s happening to their gas and electricity bills, what’s happening to oil prices and petrol prices at the pumps. These are the issues they want us to address and look at. You will see us dealing with some of these issues when we come back in September.”

[UPDATE The PM’s comment came as Ipsos-MORI published their August monitor showing the Tories on 48% with Labour on 24%. This is the second worst poll for Labour for decades. The worst was a YouGov poll in May just after the local elections which had the Tories 26% ahead.]

It’s hard to know what to think but clearly Brown could not say anything else. PMs don’t say, at least not in public, that “..we are going to get a thrashing”.

Also of interest is his comments about their being no cabinet re-shuffle. The Brown recovery plan is all about the economy.

One thing that is getting much better for Labour is the declining price of crude oil and the fall-back is petrol prices from their record levels only a few weeks ago. Whether this will be reflected in the polls we shall have to wait and see.

Mike Smithson