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Brown’s high-risk election strategy

The PM’s refusal to rule out a snap election is getting silly,
says our Westminster insider

Gordon Brown is playing a high-risk game by ramping up the fever over a snap election.

Panicky Labour MPs in marginal seats are backing an early poll, because they see it as the best way of saving their seats. And some of Brown's advisors are whispering that he could beat David Cameron and emerge with a bigger majority.

But wiser heads in the Labour Party are worried that his tactic of leaving open the option of an autumn election could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When Brown first allowed election speculation to start running in the summer, it was a great political wheeze. It forces the Tories to draw up ill-thought out policies, which a canny Brown can use against them in the future.

The prospect of a snap election also forces the Labour Party to come together, and puts pressure on the reluctant unions and other donors to cough up much-needed cash.

But the truth is that an early election holds great dangers for Labour.

Although Labour is up to eight points ahead of the Tories in the polls, that could change once a campaign starts. Labour activists will find it very difficult to get out their voters in the dark, dismal days of late October.

Labour has far less money than the Tories to spend on the campaign, and the collapse of support for the Lib-Dems will help Cameron not Brown, especially in the South of England.

Brown knows that it takes a swing of less than two per cent for the Government to lose more than 40 swing seats, which would wipe out his majority. And he knows Labour always gets higher poll ratings than actual results.

The PM may be enjoying this bout of election fever, but he needs to nip it in the bud.

FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 24, 2007