There has been considerab;e speculation about the prospect of a possible general election to be held in November. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has allowed the suggestion to gain momentum following the Labour Party Conference and a run of favourable polls. A number of PR projects (including a provocative but also astute photo opportunity in Iraq) fuelled the assumption that November 8th was the date.
Today, after publication of three less favourable polls, it appears that the brakes are being put on. The Financial Times said today that election speculation was being “damped down” by the government. The Morning Star said today that Gordon Brown was too “cowardly” to hold an election. The Guardian today published a poll showing Labour and the Tories both on 38%. If there is no need to take a risk, the media advises, then Gordon Brown would be wise to wait. Except that the activists (who would actually fight the general election in the constituencies) may not be so easily "damped down".
AJP Taylor, Barbara Tuchman, and others have pointed out that the mobilisation of troops in 1914 made war inevitable since there was no practical way of bringing them back without chaos and loss of face - which would have been a defeat by proxy for whichever power did it first. For weeks Gordon Brown has taunted the Tories by suggesting he might call a snap general election, hoping to frighten and disorganise them. Over the past week David Cameron has confronted Labour with his uber-macho “bring it on” calls. Both sides have allowed mobilisation to take place. A general election must now follow or one of the sides must start to demobilise. Whichever side demobilises first (and it looks to be Labour) will suffer a moral defeat (and as we know, moral defeats destroy confidence among activists and lead to actual defeats).
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