The Sunday after the night before

Unsurprisingly the Sundays have had a bit of a last minute re-draft and are full of the PM's decision to call off a snap election.

This has coincided with the YouGov poll that puts the Tories three points ahead, with the comrades dropping five points to 38.

The Observer has a detailed article on the last minute wranglings at Number Ten, including an analysis of who was for, against, and ambivalent. Andrew Rawnsley discusses the long-term implications "Black Saturday" might have on Brown's reputation for being a strong and decisive leader.

The Times also discusses yesterday's events and the effect that advice from "young Turks" has had on the narrative over the last couple of weeks. Westmonster is sensing a certain backlash against the influences of Balls and Alexander, who are being tacitly fingered as the architects of the SNAFU that eventually led to Brown's climbdown yesterday. How this augurs for their careers - both of them are young secretaries of state - remains to be seen.

This transcript of Adam Boulton on Sky News yesterday is a clear indication that the meedja feel these "young advisors" will have to answer for themselves (via Iain Dale):

It's all very well calling them young advisors. Let's remember that they are Cabinet Ministers - Ministers of the Crown - people like Ed Balls and Ed Milliband and of course, Douglas Alexander. All of them occupy lofty offices of state so their age doesn't really matter. They are very senior figures, apparently.

Ooooh, nasty.

The Times is all "here endeth the Brown honeymoon," The Independent leader reckons that Brown made the right decision for the wrong reasons, and Rentoul concurs that Gord's dithering is going to cost him dearly.

Meanwhile, the Observer points out that Alistair Darling's going to have his work cut out for him when he delivers the pre-budget report to Parliament on Tuesday, and Hamish McRae in the Independent predicts that this is the precursor to a tight budget next spring.

In other news, the Telegraph is horrified that some of those "diffrunt people" are cluttering up the leafy commuter belt with their foreign food and Polish accents, and Henry Porter in the Observer sees the dread hand of the police state at work in the week's news. As he does every Sunday.

Written by Lloyd Shepherd on 7 Oct 2007 10:34 AM. Permalink