Build up to the General Election
And so General Election campaign 2010 has begun in earnest, with 6th May being pencilled in as the most probable date, pitting melty-faced, sad sack Gordon Brown against perma-grin walking charisma/swarm merchant David Cameron, with Nick ‘yes I am relevant’ Clegg scrabbling along the floor picking up odd votes and seats, the electoral system’s equivalent of a homeless pickpocket.
Obviously the Election will dissolve into a straight out battle between Brown and Cameron, Labour and Conservative. The Liberal Democrats will do their generic, ‘get 25% of the vote and a disproportionate amount of seats in Parliament’ trick, the BNP will do their level best to get a seat in a racially volatile constituency such as Barking or Dagenham (but the British people will prove there is no place for their kind in this world) and the Green Party might get a seat, fingers crossed they do, but they might not. There you go, election results in 100 words, four months before it happens. Enjoy.
Anyway, the real battle will be like it’s been for the last 100 years or so, between Labour and the Tories. The battle lines are already beginning to be drawn out, with the economy being the main point of discussion for obvious reasons. The danger for Brown with the economy is that he can come across as gloating and bigheaded – note his “saviour of the world” bit after last year’s G20 conference.
For anyone without an economics degree (that’s me too!), the tactic of pumping money into the economy in a downturn to turn it around, a Keynesian approach, is the generally accepted way to get out of an economic crisis. This is what Brown did and the UK is now out of recession, by the skin of its teeth admittedly. Cameron opposed this policy and has subsequently been proven wrong.
The paradox is that the Conservatives will brush this under the carpet and if Brown attempts to bring it back up, he will be accused of gloating on an issue that has long since passed, and intellectual boasting; a trait we on the Left have a habit of, portraying those on the Right as moronic, stupid and wrong.
This is one, of many, tightropes Brown and Labour will have to walk if they want to have any chance in this election. The chances of Labour still being the dominant party in the House of Commons come June are slimmer than a playing card, but they can still hope for a hung Parliament to retain some semblance of power.
Let battle begin.
Photos by World Economic Forum.
