03/10/2013 00:00
TW
0

by RAY FLEMING
IF Gordon Brown does not announce that he is calling an election before next Tuesday there can be no poll in October. The earliest possible date would then be 1 November and although that looks like any other Thursday in the calendar it has a smell of winter about it and some experts in the Labour party think that getting your supporters out to vote becomes more and more difficult as the weather worsens and daylight hours shorten. The general assumption is that the prime minister will not want to name the date while the Conservatives are meeting in Blackpool from Sunday to Wednesday; to do so would look opportunistic and politically discourteous.

Mr Brown may also have it in mind that the longer he delays the more the trouble piles up for David Cameron. Another poll yesterday gave Labour its largest lead yet but the bigger blow of the day was probably Norman Tebbit's criticism of Mr Cameron's leadership and strong endorsement of Gordon Brown's qualities. Lord Tebbit may be a voice from the past but there are still many Conservatives who belong to that past and his praise for Mr Brown's invitation to Lady Thatcher to take tea at No 10 will have registered with them. More specifically, Lord Tebbit's dismissal of Mr Coleman and his Old Etonian colleagues as “intellectually clever but with no experience of the world” will coincide with many people's opinion of the people with whom Mr Cameron has chosen to surround himself.