Exclusive: Cameron is Rasputin's love child

This time last week a YouGov poll for the Telegraph had the comrades maintaining their 11 point lead over the shiny faced boy wonder (pictured here with a cute puppy. Awwww!), whilst the Times Populus poll had him slipping five percentage points in the aftermath of the Gord's address to Conference. He was chained, bound, and apparently buggered.

Conservatives began trudging to Blackpool amongst headlines reading "David Cameron - RIP," talking heads putting the odds of a snap election at somewhere around 130%, and a general sense that Conference might just degenerate into a bloody civil war.

Tory favourite William Hague opened Conference with a speech warning against self-immolation, and to nearly everyone's surprise, the faithful took Hague's words to heart. Suddenly, instead of a party in the shit, the Conservatives started to look like a party getting its shit together.

By the time Monday dawned, the slightly scary rictus that Brown had stapled to his face since the week before began to show signs of strain: whither the assassination attempts on Dave? Where were the irritated Tory activists demanding blood? Doesn't he look nice cuddling that cute puppy? Can we get a puppy for Gordon?

Aside from Arnie's bafflement at the "comedy bumbling" stylings of BoJo, it started to look like just maybe the Labour post-Conference bounce was more smoke and mirrors than cast-iron support for the comrades, as the IPSOS/Mori poll released on Sunday suggested.

By the time Boy George had squeaked through his widely trailed speech and promised lots of lovely tax cuts - including a reduction in stamp duty and a raising of the inheritance tax threshold - the Brown bunker started belatedly channelling Obi Wan Kenobi and muttering about tremors in the Force. Poor Darling was reduced to bleating that "the sums don't add up".

A panicked Brown decided he needed to do something. So he... erm... cleverly decided to violate (a) the longstanding tradition of not upstaging a party conference, (b) his pledge to announce policy decisions in Parliament before announcing them to the media, and (c) his commitment to consult the House before announcing troop withdrawals in Iraq. The fact none of the A-Team at No. 10 considered that this patently brilliant manoeuvre might backfire almost makes one long for the days of Alastair Campbell. "HYPOCRITE!" screamed mainstream media and bloggers alike.

Meanwhile, back in Blackpool, strolling casually around the platform and speaking with just a few notes (which he allowed to drop into the laps of friendly journos afterwards) Cameron pulled off an extremely acceptable address to his Conference. Media reaction was tepid, but it wasn't openly hostile.

Thursday morning and Ben Brogan's already predicting the PM will change his mind over a snap poll, and by the time Friday arrived, the Guardian/ICM poll had the Tories and Labour neck and neck at 38%.

Having stoked the speculation about an early election to put the shits up the Tories, by the afternoon the thought that they might actually have to go through with it was beginning to cause some irregular bowel movements in the Brown bunker. The polling in the marginals is hardly orgasmic, the postal strike is underway in earnest, and boundary changes mean that a loss of a mere 20 seats puts the comrades in "hung Parliament" territory.

Does he have the cojones? We'll find out tomorrow.

Written by Lloyd Shepherd on 6 Oct 2007 11:30 AM. Permalink