Are the Tories being out-classed in the spin wars?

One of big decisions that Gord took during his summer holiday was to beef up Labour and the government’s whole PR operation in order to compete with the Tory threat. Result: the return of perhaps the most successful political spin team ever – Mandelson and Campbell.

And over the past six weeks we have seen a transformation in the way Team Brown is getting its message across and its ability to undermine the opposition.

We’ve often talked about the media narrative here – and how things have changed so much for the government since the start of October. Labour’s now on a roll and what’s becoming apparent is that the Tory team is no match for them.

For example just look at the way the Osborne story has been kept going or how large parts of the media took up the “talking down the currency” charge. These have left the Tories floundering with no apparent defence.

All this is not about media bias, as many PB contributors seem to suggest, but that Labour has become a whole lot better at getting its message across and undermining the Tories.

Could it be that the narrative stays with Labour right up May 2010? With Mandy and Campbell charged up then it might well do. Anybody interesting in betting on the next election or forecasting its outcome has to take this into consideration.

Mike Smithson