Will 2007 be an Election Year?

Will there be an election?

My belief is, well, just maybe, yes. I have talked about this with friends and colleagues a great deal recently and I would say I now reckon there is a 50:50 chance of a general election in 2007 assuming Blair will go sometime next year and Brown will become leader. Some of the members of the media I have spoken to have also told me that they have made plans as to who will go where and how the coverage will work. We should all probably be as diligent.

The reasoning goes like this:

1. Brown needs a “victory” of some kind to give him legitimacy before the media takes him apart. Unless he is challenged by a real heavy weight, and there is no sign John Reid or anyone else of that level will do so, Brown’s ascension will look like a coronation and will prevent him ever being able to govern effectively and he knows it. An election win would solve that.
2. Brown wants to govern for as long as possible. 2007 may well represent his best chance to win an election. He knows that on present form David Cameron is getting better week by week. The sooner Brown can beat him, the less threatening Cameron will be. To add further weight to this argument, the Tories are also not as well prepared as the other two parties to fight an election. They have selected fewer candidates and have more internal questions about who those candidates should be. Brown would love to catch them on the hop.
3. There is a honeymoon period for any new leader during which the public want to give them a chance on the basis that “they have only just got the job”. This will only last a few months, at most, and Brown will want to take advantage of it. He can also maximise the effect by coming out with a raft of new policies the moment he assumes office. His pre-budget report looked like an introduction to just such a list of new measures for next year.
4. Brown is right to also think that things are not going to get much better if he waits around. After the initial glow has passed, most of the major policies (Iraq excepted) are not ones he can change dramatically - after all, he helped shape almost all of them. Also, the major faces around him will be the same. Much of the Labour talent pool has already been tried and found wanting. Three months after Brown takes over, the public will not think there is much that has improved. Brown may also have more indicators suggesting the economy will slow from 2008 and will be keen to go to the country before it does and his own record is scrutinised.
5. An early election would also mean a short campaign and Labour does not have the resources for a long one. Their situation will only get worse before it gets better. The Tories meanwhile, have a bigger debt but deeper pockets. For them, the advantage is in a longer campaign where they can out spend Labour.

The question that remains is whether he has the guts to risk a job he has waited for so long. The “no” camp cites his refusal to push Blair when he was weak, but my instinct says he is cautious most of the time except when he has brooded on something and worked up to it. Here is a case in point. If he judges the tide is with him he will jump.

And if there is an election, when will it be?

The two most likely answers are May or October. May would allow the election to be combined with the local and Scottish rounds where Labour is expected to do badly. A general election would help lift that, goes the argument.

My vote is with the autumn though. This would allow Blair to make the most of his martyr complex and absorb the blame for bad May results and in so doing, saving his long-term reputation with the Labour Party (there being no other real chance for him to leave on a high note). Brown would then have the summer recess to dominate the media with his new policies while being unchallenged in the Commons. It would also give time to pull forces out of Iraq, something that could not be done my May, and the only real break with Blair-era policy that the general public will make voting decisions on. Brown could then call the election before the end of his honey moon period and take the stage at a rescheduled Labour Party conference as the victor of an impressive fourth successive term. Or at least, that would be Brown’s version of the script.

And if there is an election, will Brown win?

The Guardian suggests today that the Tories are on 40% to Labour’s 32%. Gordon Brown could be one of the shortest serving Prime Ministers in history.

Meanwhile, I am off to Ladbrokes to see the latest odds.