Why doesn’t Gord sound convincing about the election?
Would a bit more frankness help his position?
It’s inevitable, I suppose, given the total cock-up in Labour’s communications ahead of the election that never was in October 2007, that Brown is going to be pressed about the date whenever he submits himself to an interview.
This came up in the latest Andrew Marr interview and it will come up time and time again. So why doesn’t he make an effort to sound convincing?
For perhaps the most damaging feature of the October 2007 debacle was his refusal to accept that the apparent change of mind had anything to do with the opinion polls. He just looked shifty and Cameron exploited that brilliantly.
Surely everybody would accept that a Prime Minister who believes that what he/she is doing is good for the country will want to continue in the role and for the party to be re-elected. And as we near the end of the fourth year of a parliament there’s bound to be increasing speculation and, of course, he/she will be scrutinising every new poll for possible indications.
So why not just say so in so many terms? Why get into the form of words and contortions that seemed to afflict Brown yesterday? It simply doesn’t make sense.
This, of course, is going to explode if a voting intention survey from one of the mainstream pollsters has Labour equal or even ahead. Brown Central needs to get its thinking cap on.
