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| Not even Cameron can control the politics of anger | Martin Kettle The next election will take place amid a mood of public hostility to government that is near revolutionary in its forceThe polls are narrowing and the game is afoot. We can't wait for the election, say Labour MPs, suddenly and in numbers. Except that the polls aren't narrowing much or enough, and it isn't yet game on at all. It is one thing to be misled by polls and local elections that are actually in your favour, as Harold Wilson was when he called the 1970 election. It is quite another thing to get carried away β as some in the Labour party are β by polls that are simply not in their favour. It's still the Conservatives who would like an early election most β because they are more likely to win it.All told, there is something childish about the current flurry of Labour self-deception about the changing political weather. It is so manifestly untrue, or at most only partly true β one weekend poll had the Tory lead at 17 points while another, like this week's Guardian poll, had a more exciting 9-point margin β that it is hard not to suspect it is in some measure just a smokescreen to stamp out any last efforts at a winter rising against Gordon Brown.After years as the Eeyore of British politics, Brown is suddenly behaving like its improbable Tigger. He is doing his best. But it is not a good sign. Readers who can remember the 1976 Liberal leadership contest β bliss was it in that dawn to be alive β may recall that David Steel delivered the knockout blow to his ebullient rival John Pardoe's chances by quoting AA Milne and making the selfsame comparison. "With one loud Worraworraworraworraworra he jumped at the end of the tablecloth, pulled it to the ground, wrapped himself up in it three times, rolled to the other end of the room, and, after a terrible struggle, got his head into the daylight again, and said cheerfully: 'Have I won?'" Pardoe was barely heard of again. Not a good precedent for Brown.Seen from where David Cameron now stands, all this excitement is taking place in the political middle distance. He observes and notes it, but does not feel any need to respond. In the Tory perspective very little has changed in the party battle as 2009 draws to its close. Between 1992 and 2006, the Conservatives never once reached 40% in the monthly polls. From 2006 until 2008 they sometimes did and sometimes didn't. Since May 2008, however, the Tories have been on 40% or above in all but three polls, including this week's. The Tory average for the last 18 months is 41%; in the latest poll their rating is 40%. Crisis? What crisis? Steady as she goes.Whatever may have changed in the last few weeks is, in the Tory view, largely restricted to traffic between the non-Tory parties and the non-Tory vote. Labour-leaning analysts agree. Labour is picking up a bit of support from the Liberal Democrats and the other parties β not least from the BNP, from whom Labour captured a council seat last week β but not from the Tories. The Tory position itself remains very much as it has been all year β strong enough to put the Tories into power but only by climbing, for the centre-right, an unprecedented electoral mountain. The Tories still need a massive swing and to win around 120 new seats to have a majority.The party leadership acknowledges that things have got a bit stuck. We have been a bit gloomy, they admit, while pointing out that these are also gloomy times. They draw comfort, however, from what they say lies below the surface of the polling β that the Tories are still more trusted on the economy (though significantly less so than in the autumn) and on public spending. The "Where's the grit?" argument that was levelled against them in 2006-8 has disappeared, they say. The efforts of the Birmingham party conference in 2008 and the Manchester conference this year have been effective. Voters now listen to what the Tories propose on spending, and do not flinch as they once did.The Tories affect to be nonchalant about Brown's class war taunts, even quietly welcoming them as a sign of Labour desperation. But the Tories do not intend to respond in kind. On the contrary. Bashing the bankers and the toffs may go down well among the core Labour vote β though banker-bashing is surely far more resonant than jibes about Eton β but the electoral rewards are short-term and finite.Some foolish Tories crave a Conservative response in kind. What about something for the Tory core voters, sighed Simon Heffer in the Daily Telegraph the other day, much as Arthur Scargill used to call on Labour to fight for its class the way Thatcher's Tories fought for theirs. Doubtless more agree with Heffer than think it prudent to say so. But this is not the mainstream Tory view, certainly not for the moment anyway. Around Cameron the response to Brown's class war rhetoric is utterly different. They can't believe their luck. Brown has gifted us the centreground for a generation, they say, rubbing their hands. They are not going to spurn their gift.In the new year the Tories promise a fresh campaigning focus on middle Britain voters, aiming to do more of what Cameron has always done so successfully; framing his party as both a realistic and an idealistic alternative. The model for some is the Butler-Woolton approach of the late 1940s, not harking back but offering something new. We must recapture the spirit of change, is also the word from the top. In defiance of generations of political wisdom that says oppositions should not be too specific, there will be detailed new commitments.Cameron will clearly frame the election as a classic choice between change (the Tories) β and more of the same (Labour). The polls still suggest it is the right course. So does experience. The next election, like the last, will be decided by swing voters in key marginals. That's why Lord Ashcroft's millions, invested in these marginals, matter so much to the Tory party and why it is so important to Cameron that the peer's tax status does not become an election issue.In the end, however, not even Cameron can control the politics of anger. As the first election since the expenses scandal, this contest will take place amid a mood of hostility towards politicians that at times seems almost revolutionary in its force, fully encouraged by the media. The possibility of X Factor-style political shows next spring is another sign of the way things are now moving. I believe the modern media now has a collective oppositional self-interest not just to particular parties or class interests, as in the past, but to the very idea of government and politics itself. How far even Cameron can prosper in such a system is one of the many questions that will face him and us in 2010.ConservativesGeneral electionLabourGordon BrownDavid CameronOpinion pollsMartin Kettleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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