Xinomorph

Here at the dawn of the 2007 Labour Party conference, there is increasing speculation that Gordon Brown will call an autumn election. But will he?

 

My instinct is no.

 

The polls, undoubtedly, do appear to be in his favour at the moment. But in my opinion he has far more to lose than he has to gain. The man has been waiting for more than a decade now to get into power. He's not going to risk it - because let's face it, that's what it is - after just a few months.

 

Over the past week or so, we've had a small-scale economic crisis, so no matter what the opinion polls say at the moment, the public are wary of economic stability. He has the added burden here of having been the Chancellor of the Exchequor for more than 10 years, so any further problems could quite easily find their way back to him.

 

And of course, even if they did before, there's no chance of anything remotely resembling a "rural vote" advantage for Labour. The past month-and-a-bit has seen foot and mouth disease spring up in two batches, the second of which has seemingly been caused by cross-infection after the Government lifted restrictions on vehicles, goods and livestock (etc) far too early. If that wasn't enough to content with, there's now this bluetongue virus. Admittedly that can't quite be traced back to the Labour party in quite the same way - or hasn't been so far - but it's just another factor in demoralising Britain's farming and agricultural communities.

 

A week is a long time in politics. Any one of those points could settle right down, or could equally easily balloon very quickly, and of course there's no telling what else might happen.

 

Does he really want to chance it? After waiting so long to get into power, will he risk becoming one of the shortest ever Prime Ministers to hold office? He's got almost another 3 years guaranteed in power, should he want it. Apart from waving off the "no mandate" image, what would he actually have to gain from it? Nowehere near enough to take such a gamble.

 

And in any case, there's still the West Lothian Question.