Andrew Grice: The Week in Politics
A topsy-turvy world that makes Cameron smile
Published: 28 April 2007
In the past week, two ministers, Hilary Benn and Andy Burnham, have been heckled by health workers at their trade union conferences while Andrew Lansley, the Tory health spokesman, was cheered by junior doctors from the public gallery when he spoke in the Commons.
On a campaign visit to Wales yesterday, David Cameron pinpointed a pivotal moment in February, when he was greeted as a hero at a rally of 12,000 doctors angry with the Government. "It was definitely a moment when I thought, 'Right, we really can win the next general election,'" he said. We live in strange times, of topsy-turvy politics.
A Labour government that has given the NHS the biggest cash transfusion in its history is being outgunned on its favourite issue by a party the voters have never really trusted on health. No wonder Mr Cameron was bouncy and confident when I watched him on the stump yesterday.
Next Thursday's elections to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and English councils will probably be remembered as the day when Tony Blair got a final kicking and will be measured as an indication of just how far Labour's fortunes have fallen.
Scotland will matter most. The reverberations will be felt many miles from the Edinburgh Parliament. The opinion polls suggest the Scottish National Party (SNP) will be the largest party in it, inflicting Labour's first defeat in a major Scottish election for more than 50 years.
An SNP-led administration in Scotland would rain heavily on Gordon Brown's parade just as he becomes Prime Minister. The UK's new leader and the fellow Scots in his Cabinet, would not be able to implement key elements of their domestic agenda in their own constituencies.
Although an SNP victory would be more of an anti-Labour protest vote than a vote for independence, senior Labour figures fear it would provoke a feeling of "good riddance, we're better off without you" among the English. That would be a crushing blow to Mr Brown as he sets out to woo Middle England.
The SNP has run an effective and unusually disciplined campaign, using the trick of promising a referendum on a breakaway to give voters a get-out clause (a trick used previously by Labour on joining the euro). An anti-Scottish revolt in England would suit the SNP very nicely. If it led to a Tory victory at the general election, that might provide the booster rockets needed to win a referendum on independence.
Yet next week's elections are also an important test for Mr Cameron's Conservatives. They will need to win at least 40 per cent of the total votes for him to maintain his sunny optimism about the general election.
Mr Cameron has revelled in the interregnum caused by Mr Blair's over-long goodbye. He expects Mr Brown to get some sort of bounce from his early initiatives. But Tory strategists do not fear him as much as they did six months ago. They think the Iron Chancellor has become tarnished just as he reaches the last stretch of his marathon 13-year wait for the top job.
The key question, Mr Cameron believes privately, is whether the incoming Prime Minister has been around so long the voters will not regard him as the "change" from the Blair era he will need to be. The Tory leader rehearsed his lines in Wales yesterday, saying: "If people want change, then the only way to get it is to vote Conservative."
They won't admit it in public, but some ultra-Blairites also believe Mr Brown will be seen by the public as such an integral figure of the Blair regime that Mr Cameron will sweep up the votes of people who want change.
After David Miliband, the last great hope of the über-Blairites, ruled himself out of the Labour leadership race, some of them have sunk into deep gloom. Some proclaim "the end of New Labour". Others go even further, saying the next general election is already lost and, remarkably, are planning to get a Miliband-wagon running for the leadership contest that would almost certainly follow. They do not want to be blamed for the defeat they feel coming and, like Mr Blair, will endorse Mr Brown in public, keeping their hands clean for the post-election battle.
The Blairite gloomsters shouldn't believe the opinion polls showing that Mr Cameron is preferred to Mr Brown as the next Prime Minister. Mr Cameron leads his party, Mr Brown, to his frustration, does not yet lead his. I am surprised the Labour prophets of doom appear to have written off his chances without giving him the opportunity to show his worth.
It is a no-brainer, for example, that the Chancellor will try hard to turn round the NHS rather than share Mr Blair's blind faith that the damaging current round of closures and job cuts will lead to sunny uplands next year. Even if he is crowned Labour leader unopposed, Mr Brown will use the seven-week period between Mr Blair's resignation announcement and him becoming Prime Minister to spell out his agenda for government. It will, to all intents and purposes, form part of his much-vaunted "first 100 days", with the second wave coming when he enters Downing Street, names the new Cabinet and goes head-to-head with Mr Cameron.
The time to judge Mr Brown is not now but in the autumn. By then, we will know whether the current period of topsy-turvy politics is for real or a blip at the end of the Blair era.
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