An early election?

To judge from the statements today by Cameron and Spelman, the Conservatives are preparing for a general election early in the new year. The latter actually said today that they were ready, although as they have recently closed their Coleshill campaign centre, could this be bluff or gamesmanship?

Recently for reasons that I cannot explain Brown Central has considerably narrowed the gap in the polls, the reason being that voters seem to like the splurge-now, pay-later economic policies. (The rational explanation seems to be, "If I can save my home, my job or my business at the cost of everyone paying more tax, then I'll grasp it.")

The other reason for an early election is that things will probably get much worse before they get better, and there will be fewer people able to say "If I can save my home, my job or my business..." and more who will angrily say "He's cost me my home, job, business."

Cameron and company have effectively boxed themselves in, which may be right or wrong, but it means that Brown will be able to dance around offering all sorts of inducements as he goes for broke. Cameron may win the moral ground but not enough votes.

So it may be a race. If the polls continue to show Zanulabour close to or even in front of the Tories, then Brown will face the dilemma he faced in Autumn 2007 - should he go for an election which he could lose, or hang on in the hope that something will turn up? He is a ditherer, but those around him may point out what I have been saying, - "If you offer a few more goodies, enough people will buy them. Let the future look after itself. In the meantime the longer you delay an election the greater the number of repossessions and business failures and the higher the level of unemployment."

To judge from polls this autumn, people seem to prefer Brown to solve this crisis, but Cameron to put things right in the long run. This ambiguity may suggest that a hung parliament might result from an early election, whichever party wins the greatest number of seats. Some may feel that this is what we shall need to deal with the aftermath of the recession, with the elimination of policy excesses in any direction and consensual government resulting. This would be a new opportunity for politicians. Whether they would rise to it is another matter.