This morning’s polls will be causing consternation in Downing Street. ICM in The Guardian finds the two parties level on 38 points and Populus for The Times has Labour ahead 39 to 36.
If Labour went for an election now it is far from certain that Gordon Brown would increase his majority. To go to the country looking for a mandate and come back with fewer seats than Tony Blair achieved in his worst electoral performance would leave Brown a wounded PM. As Peter Riddell writes in The Times, “Gordon Brown needs an exit strategy, fast.”
The debate in Westminster is about how much permanent damage would be done to Brown by pulling back now. Certainly, David Cameron would be able to claim a triumph and the Tories could ridicule Brown as a bottler. So the Prime Minister desperately needs a face-saving way out. One possibility suggested to me is that Brown might rule out an election but at the same time endorse fixed term parliaments hoping that the positive coverage for this constitutional innovation would lessen the impact of the retreat.
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