Newmania Avoids Complacency

You find me naked dear reader , liberally basted in honey , gurgling through another cheeky Pinot and conducting Ode To Joy ,at thunderous volume, with a Conservative Rosette . Thus I contemplate ,‘avoiding complacency‘.
Her Majesty’s Daily Telegraph , which I now have delivered on Sunday ,is a fitted carpet of post Glasgow East gloating and Brown crucifying .Notes of doubt injected by stern Conservatives carry an almost audible giggle.' Tra la ' ,I said as we attended a golden afternoon’s sybaritic barbecue , and 'tum tum ti tum ',as we returned .
There is little I can add to the gallows crowd twitter ,” Cor dun e look eeevil”…” You shoulnu’ oughta dun it “ they shriek ,mouths greasy with pig and ale so , content in the knowledge that my often made point about the marginals (polling even worse) is endorsed by top pollsters, I shall indulge in little time travel. This , says my therapist , will assist in the all important “avoiding complacency” process.
Remember when the look of slack jawed confusion was on the other mouth? A month after the Brown coronation he had a 9% poll lead comparable to Labour`s performance in the 2001 General election, and worth a 134 seat majority, double his since depleted 67 . David Cameron was suffering the same slo mo close ups on every bench exercise wobble his Pictish rival now enjoys . The photo op trip to Rwanda , about which lord Dale of Blog was so hysterically swoony, the missed floods ,…oh and other stuff.
Gordon by contrast ,gasped at the bouquets and air kisses he got for standing “Calmly” in welly boots .Labour were on 41% ,( U Gov ) , the Conservatives 32%, a position mirroring that immediately after Saddam Hussein was ousted . Mr . Brown had an 18% lead over his rival on the question ,‘who would make the best PM’, and David Cameron was down to a 27% approval rating, from 43% ,six months earlier. Cameron was wounded and the Conservative party ,less vegetarian than the left , were already browsing suitable accompaniments to roasted ex leader.
To the intuitive Political commentator, ahem…, there were still signs if hope. Brown has started to undermine the talismanic Blairite city academies policy as well as signalling an end to the privatisation of NHS services . Hazel Blear the only Deputy candidate to say things like “England , aspiration and the South “ was told “Gordon doesn’t like that stuff”. All of this suggests Labour were talking only to themselves .A Senior back bencher told Anne Mc Elvoy ( Evening Stanit’ editor )” Gordon will need voices to the left to balance his ticket , he`s now seen as the right wing candidate “…yup in Labour world maybe .
Consider the coagulating conceit of Indy hack Steve Richards ,arguing ,earlier , that Labour had no need for a leadership election, far less a general election , pourquoi ? “. A new leader must immediately be an authoritative and (wait for it ) agile ,star at Prime ministers question times……perform badly and the leader is finished …” The little business of a specific promise we would not get Brown is forgotten by Mr. Richards and encouragingly it appeared by Labour .
There were other reasons Brown to go for it . The impending boundary commission was likely to give the Conservatives 20 seats , Frances Maude’s ineffectual influence was at its height and the Conservative Party were utterly unprepared . In Sir Menzies , Brown had perhaps the weakest political leader of any Party yet seen, and his tenure was already fragile . Any replacement had to be far better a crucial factor in some swing seats. Above all he was quite clearly enjoying a bounce accorded to any new Leader and the sheer relief to get rid of Blair . It had to subside , so why did Brown dither ?
Simon Heffer reported this Conservative back bencher’s hope …” Brown’s a coward. He always has been …”. So it proved, and then the arrogance .We must assume he genuinely believed that two years of Blair filtered and undiluted Brown was a better shot than the many good reasons for going to the electorate early .Undiluted Brown has, in the event, made the Nation vomit .

OK so the ‘not getting complacent' went quite well really . I’ll pick this up tomorrow … but thus far a pretty good level of humility achieved considering .(Tra la la )