Looking ahead: 2009

Friday, 2 January 2009 12:00 AM

By Alex Stevenson

As the general election approaches, will Gordon Brown be able to sustain his recovery into 2009?

Or will David Cameron's attacks on the economy and his complaints about a 'broken Britain' win over the great British public?

The prime minister is at his best when his confidence levels are up. For much of 2008 Labour insiders told us the bunker mentality inside No 10 was getting everyone down. Plummeting poll ratings cast a long shadow over Downing Street before the autumn's global economic crisis came to the rescue. Brown's response earned international praise and proved just the tonic needed to inject some life into his premiership.

As we enter the new year we are back in hung parliament territory, having spent much of 2008 talking about Labour's lowest poll ratings since the Michael Foot era. The question remains: can Brown cling on?

Even if he decides to do so literally, by using up the full five years of Labour's historic third term, we will find ourselves facing a general election within five months of the end of the year. There is a chance Brown may opt to gamble some of his precious time in power in a bid to boost his chances of victory. Either way, the stage is set for one of the most protracted election campaigns of recent times.

We're in act one already. The curtains opened with the government's Pre-Budget Report, still less than two months ago, which laid out borrowing plans to combat the recession so drastic they caused the opening of a fundamental political divide between the two parties. The public debt as a percentage of GDP will rocket to 57 per cent at its peak, a terrifying prospect for those who placed their faith in Brown's 40 per cent upper limit.

Public spending

With public spending well and truly back on the political agenda. Cameron's whole approach to his leadership relied on tying his public spending plans to the government's. But his decision to break away from that commitment provides him with a headache and he will be doing his utmost to limit the way it changes the electorate's view of his party. So the coming year will be a difficult balancing act for the Tory leader and his shadow chancellor, George Osborne - but it will also be a year of huge opportunity.

The economy

For any decent opposition party should be able to benefit from a struggling economy. Here's a prediction for the general election: turnout is going to be up sharply. Disillusionment in politics has played its part but so too has a general satisfaction with the boom. Now that is over people have something to worry about. In 2005 it was about 'sending a message'. In 2010, or possibly 2009, it may be about kicking the government out altogether. The Tories must capitalise on this if they are the effective opposition they claim to be.

Public services

What is interesting, amid this argument over economic blame and what to do about it, is the relative unimportance of debate over the future of Britain's public services. After Labour's decade of hugely increased investment, satisfaction in the NHS is at a high, according to pollsters Ipsos Mori. Education isn't doing too badly either. Labour will have to try and paint the Tories' spending plans as an insidious attack which will undermine their work. It will prove difficult, however, as the focus remains on putting tax money back in people's pockets.

'Broken society'

One of Cameron's central claims, that we are living in a broken society, will be held up for scrutiny by Labour instead. It's a wide-ranging cover for the nation's home affairs problems but Conservative strategists seem to be sticking with it. Cameron will be the one doing the persuading here. Look at binge-drinking, crime levels, anti-social behaviour, he will say. And there's no doubt the Tories are on comfortable ground. But they are also in negative territory and it is by no means certain the public mood reflects their gloom.

The coming year will be dominated by the run-up to the next election, with the economy and the state of Britain as the chief talking points. 'What a fine mess the government's got us into' - whether or not you accept that statement will largely determine who you'll vote for.

Unless you're a Liberal Democrat, of course. Britain's third party will be squeezed as it never has before by the coming battle of left and right. Yet neither can completely ignore Nick Clegg and his young front-bench acolytes: they may hold the balance of power once the votes have been counted.

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