Brown Missed Opportunity Not Going for March 25 Election

By Iain Martin

As others have pointed out, the time at which Gordon Brown could have gone for an election on March 25 has now passed. Oh well. Steve Richards explains that Brown wants every minute he can get to prepare for the prime ministerial debates — although never having fought a general election as a leader, I think he probably rather forgets how busy he is going to be out on the road.

But I do think the PM has made a mistake and missed a potentially golden opportunity. When I floated “the case for March 25,” I was told “no chance” and “forget it” by Labour personages, and then it was explained to me by various people that The Dark Lord, formerly Peter, and his faithful assistant Douglas Alexander are making such cracking progress at spooking the Tories and narrowing the poll gap, that they’ll keep on going for as long as possible. So, that’ll be May 6 then.

But March 25 was a very good option for Brown, quite possibly the best. However, it would have required a flash of boldness. Here’s a short version of the case for it again:

1. The budget. Darling, in his “forces of hell” interview, served notice that he’ll produce a March austerity budget for the country, and he won’t be bullied by No. 10 into fixing the figures for an election. Going on March 25 would have wiped out a pre-election budget. The polls are closer.
2. The opinion polls.
3. Tory campaign has struggled and needs time to get its act together properly. A quick election would have denied CCHQ that.
4. Labour is broke. It had £8 million to spend, soon it’ll have just four left. Going now would have made the best of limited resources.
5. The markets. They are precariously poised, and Britain could be next in line for a kicking. Every week could bring a crisis, going early limits the possibility of such a crisis wreaking destruction on Labour. This is even more true now than it was last week, in light of what happened to the pound Monday.
6. An early election would have pleased the country. Voters would surely like a short campaign as they are sick of politics and politicians already.
7. Chilcot. The PM is due up in front of the Iraq inquiry. He could have dodged it by delaying if he had gone for March 25.

One caveat: I cited the better than expected fourth-quarter growth figures as another reason for an early poll, but they quickly fell apart (as Ed Conway revealed) when it became apparent that there had been jiggery-pokery (a technical term) and the U.K. was worse off than thought.

Still, observing the scene at the tail-end of last week and over the weekend it struck me that Brown, from his point-of-view, should just get on with it. He had the momentum, the country would thank him for accelerating the process, and he would look decisive, dynamic and not remotely weak. But no, and perhaps unsurprisingly, he decided not to be daring. Wonder if he’ll regret it?