A Good Election To Lose?

So the leaders’ debates are over, and they have been both fascinating and revealing, especially this last one. Brown was much better than he had been but not good enough. Cameron was all smooth charm (is that where we get the word ‘smarm’ from?) but because he burnt his bridges on the Euro, forgetting the old adage “never say never”, he has placed the Conservatives firmly among the ‘little Englanders’. Indeed we can now legitimately ask, “is there a cigarette paper between the Conservatives, UKIP and the BNP?” Clegg stood up well to the massive assault from the other two who had reverted to the style and rhetoric of PMQs. Moreover, Clegg proved that he could argue for policies on both the Euro and immigration that he knew would not be popular with our increasingly isolationist and xenophobic media. Clegg is a man of courage and last night he proved it.

However, it was what was left unsaid that is probably more important than what was said. We got no clear statements on the magnitude of the economic problems which the incoming government would face, but rumours were circulating about a fascinating comment from Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England. Apparently in a private conversation, and Gordon Brown knows all about those, King is reported to have predicted that the austerity measures that any incoming government would necessarily have to take would be so severe and unpopular that the governing party, whether it be Labour, Conservative, or some sort of coalition, would subsequently be out of office for a generation.

I think Gordon Brown knows this and has known it for some time, and it is this knowledge that has coloured his, and Labour’s, approach to this election campaign. Gordon Brown and the Labour Party know that this particular general election is a good election to lose, and this is why they have been so coy about presenting the truth about our dire economic situation and the pain that will be necessary for all of us if it is to be turned around. This is why Brown was so scathing about the inheritance tax break offered by the Conservatives and the child tax credit reduction proposed by both the Conservatives and, to a lesser extent, by the Liberal Democrats.

Gordon Brown is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He clearly does not want to go down as a Prime Minister to lose an election after just two years in office, yet he sees the increasingly remote possibility of a Labour victory as nothing other than a poisoned chalice. Under such circumstances, you have to be particularly unfeeling not to have some sympathy for Gordon Brown and the predicament he finds himself in, not all of it of his own making.