It’s been two years since I sat down with 30 potential Conservative voters for BBC2’s Newsnight and asked them whom they’d like to follow into the next election. Their answer was nearly unanimous: the heretofore unknown and obscure David Cameron. And it’s been a year since I sat down with 30 potential Labour voters and asked whom they wanted to follow Tony Blair. Their answer: the colourful and avuncular John Reid. Apparently the party wasn’t listening.
A few days ago, with a new Prime Minister approaching his 100th day, I once again started a Newsnight conversation with the elusive but essential swing voters to ask whether it was time for a change (yes) and time for a snap election (perhaps). What surprised me most of all was that the group seems to think the time is now . . . for Gordon Brown.
‘Give the man a chance,’ was the refrain I heard over and over again. And, ‘Well, he’s not Tony Blair.’ Suddenly, David Cameron wasn’t the only British leader offering an antidote to Blairism. For two years Conservatives had assumed that ‘change’ was a political weapon uniquely theirs. Yet in less than 100 days Gordon Brown — the Labour Prime Minister — seems to have turned this logic on its head. Thanks to the fragmenting of the British electorate, it is certainly possible to be a part of an unpopular and unwanted government, as Brown clearly was, and yet still be seen as distinct and separate — as Brown has clearly become.
It is quite remarkable that Gordon Brown owes his current popularity in great measure to the unpopularity of his predecessor, and to the universal cynicism of the British people that same predecessor inspired. My firm has polled and researched in two dozen countries over the past three years, and nowhere on the globe is the level of distrust of elites and the institutions they manage so deep, so pervasive and — it has to be said — so depressing. Everything is ‘spin’, and everyone is a ‘spin doctor’.
Now enter Gordon Brown, a man who appears so dull and boring to the British electorate that in his persona spin goes to die. Nearly 100 days into his government, voters still have trouble identifying anything specific about him other than his demeanour — and that’s exactly why he would win at the ballot box if a snap election were called today.
Back in May, I suggested in a Guardian opinion piece that Brown needed ‘to accept who he is and what he represents and turn those attributes into strengths.’ I even had the audacity to put carefully crafted words in his mouth: ‘Some people say I’m boring. Well, they’re right. In challenging times such as these, Britain doesn’t need an entertainer. We need a leader.’ And that is exactly what he has become. A terrorist attack hours into his reign, historic floods weeks later, foot-and-mouth after that — a string of government crises that have bestowed upon him the mantle of leader. Boring, perhaps, but a leader nevertheless.
While the British electorate has witnessed Brown’s firm hand on the tiller, David Cameron has sailed into choppier waters. Twin by-election failures, an ill-timed trip to Rwanda, and highly publicised in-fighting over modernisation and policy have made the Conservatives look more like Kinnock’s Labour party than the 21st-century political machine Cameron has sought to create. Now, contrast that with the Prime Minister’s robust tackling of terrorists and the unions. He even managed to take tea with Margaret Thatcher. Like him or not, Brown has taken firm control of difficult events seemingly beyond his control.
But all is not smooth sailing for Mr Brown. At that recent Newsnight session I also heard the rumblings of the coming discontent, of a Cinderella story approaching its end. From ‘Very Old Labour’ to ‘haven’t we learned our lesson yet?’, there is the sense that his new appeal has a clearly stamped sell-by date — and he’s getting pretty close. Consider the words of those who would back him again: ‘He’s not messed it up — that’s about the best you can say,’ and, ‘We’re not condemning him, but we are sceptical.’ If this was a honeymoon, Gordon would have packed his bags for the flight home to Kirkcaldy before Prudence had even taken her pullover off.
It is simply too early for the non-aligned floating voter to reject Brown in the same way that they did Tony Blair, or John Major in 1997. But there is no sense of overwhelming endorsement coming through either. Even his achievements end up polluted by the public’s general grievances with ten years of missed Labour opportunities and heightened expectations that were never met. After a decade in office, the list of complaints with Labour is growing exponentially. Like the great W.E. Gladstone, Mr Brown really should be an old man in a hurry.
Still, the ‘Brown bounce’ lives on, at least for now, and has been complemented by a three-month ‘Dave dive’. The words of the floaters from my Newsnight panel are once again revealing. There’s a curiosity that remains about Mr Cameron, but with it a demand for detail that has them recalling the worst of Blair’s superficiality: ‘there’s never any specifics with him’, ‘too much point-scoring’, and, ‘talks too much about what’s gone wrong’. He is falling into the classic trap of opposition. Only being able to talk while governments can act: as I argued back in April, ‘It is just not enough for Mr Cameron to oppose, he must propose.’ It’s not what he’s against but what he is for that people need to hear before they can vote for him.
Six months ago, Cameron could be the anti-Blair candidate and hold a comfortable lead over the government. Now, with Brown in charge, that is not enough. The real challenge for Cameron is not his own persona but the clear blue water between himself and the party he leads. In a matter of days, Gordon Brown proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is not Tony Blair. But after two years as leader, my conversation with voters suggests that the Conservatives have not yet made the case that they too have changed.
The British are the toughest cynics in the world — and they have a collective memory that is almost elephantine. Every time someone in my group criticised Labour, someone else mentioned Thatcher. Every time the issue of schools or the NHS is raised, someone else complained about John Major. Nobody is questioning Cameron’s sincerity or his commitment to the environment and public services. Rather, they are questioning the party he leads. In the words of the voters, ‘He may be ready for election, but is his party?’
Despite pressure from his party activists, Cameron must avoid the temptation to jump left or right — to go greener or get meaner. Politics in Britain today is not about right and left – it is about right and wrong. The British public is not asking for ideology from him. After ten years of New Labour and old problems, they just want answers from their government. And quickly. The antidote for the current Tory troubles is in the facts: violent crime doubling, house prices soaring, chaos in the NHS. Then ask Britain two questions that Brown cannot answer: ‘Is New Labour really new after ten years? Does Labour deserve yet another five years?’
As for the Prime Minister, a keen student of history, he will undoubtedly be aware that if he loses an autumn election, he would probably become the shortest-serving British Prime Minister of all time. Against this, he must balance the political winds and the darkening clouds of ever-growing change blowing in from all directions. His grace period with voters is proving short; he cannot escape his association with the past t en years, and the longer he waits to call an election, the louder the cry for a change of government will become.
No, there isn’t a clamour for a vote right now, but Brown could argue that the public ‘deserves to choose’ who leads their country. Then he should ask the question that Cameron fears the most: ‘Who do you trust in a dangerous and uncertain world?’
Right now, Gordon Brown is the man of the moment — but that will change. All of Westminster is well aware that he doesn’t like David Cameron and won’t give him the respect normally afforded the opposition leader. More than anything else, David Cameron needs more time. If the PM is smart, he won’t even give him that.
Frank Luntz is the author of Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear. His most recent focus groups of the British electorate can be seen on BBC2’s Newsnight website.