Conservative cowardice

There is much talk of a snap election in Spring 09 with the tories having the jitters and labour given new hope. First thing to say is that four years is long enough for any government to carry out their policies for which they were elected, as shown by the fact that successful governments go to the people after this period; the five year gap is for governments who are seen as past their prime, whose failures are reflected in their poll ratings, who hang on for that very reason, that they know they have lost their popular mandate. We saw this with the Major government and until the financial crisis, it was as equally apparent in the labour government. How long, we opined, will this tedious business continue: failed policies, discredited ideology, the endless waiting for a change of government. Now we are not so sure. We all thought 2010, but no. The seeming success of the financial crisis has given the tired ideologues of the Gordon Brown regime fresh impetus. The spin and downright mendacity continues with wilder abandon, the odious Yvette Cooper, virtually unchallenged, filling every Radio 4 programme (the BBC supports you, Prime Minister) with the mantra that the banks got themselves into a mess, and it is the benign Gordon Brown government that is getting them out of it.

Meanwhile the Tories, previously coasting so uncontroversially to victory, are now afraid they will lose. No wonder, because on nearly all the fundamental ideological issues where clearly the government has been on the wrong side, the conservatives deliberately refused to distance themselves: the green debate and energy supply (currently being sabotaged by the government), immigration, debt, the over-reliance on the finance sector. Where has the opposition been? Such cowardice deserves another labour victory, even if the country does not.