My column from today's paper:
On Sunday, as Gordon Brown was picking out a suit to wear to Buckingham Palace (he chose the black one), I was reunited with an old friend. And the reunion helped me to understand what it is that will settle this election.
When I left Conservative Central Office in 2001, you see, I left behind a few souvenirs I didn’t think I would have space for in my brave new life.
There was a framed menu signed by some old members of the Conservative Research Department (it wasn’t mine anyway and I thought someone else might have more fun with Enoch Powell’s autograph); a gift from Yassir Arafat received when meeting him in Ramallah (this was the nicest present I have ever been given by a terrorist, but it was a 2ft-high nativity scene with Bethlehem written in very large mother-of-pearl letters. When we redecorated in Pinner, it didn’t go with the decor); a keepsake somehow acquired when William Hague was awarded Top Tie Wearer of the Year 1998 (which turned out to be the political pinnacle for the Hague team. We peaked too early); and my double whammy poster.
And this weekend I once more encountered the poster. The Conservative Party has rehired the advertising team that conceived it — the Saatchi brothers. And the agency has brought with it its most successful idea from the 1992 election campaign.
All right, it is very slightly different. Back then it was a pair of boxing gloves with More Taxes on one and Higher Prices on the other; now it’s a pair of boots stomping forward with Jobs Tax on one and More Debt on the other. But it’s basically the same idea.
There’s a good reason for this. David Cameron was the researcher providing Saatchis with the political material for the 1992 campaign, while Steve Hilton, now Cameron’s right-hand man, was seconded directly to the agency.
Last week they decided that Labour’s plans to raise national insurance opened up that party to the same attack they had helped to fashion 18 years ago. When talking with his campaign team, Mr Cameron repeatedly made the comparison with John Smith’s electorally disastrous tax plans.
The Conservative nostalgia for their victorious 1992 effort collides with Gordon Brown coming the other way. He, too, was shaped by that campaign. The early new Labour programme to which he still adheres was the product of the lessons he learnt from defeat.
And, like Mr Cameron, he believes that a trick or too can be repeated. He has been trying to force the Tories into a Shadow Budget of the sort that damaged Labour. He will play George Osborne’s notional few extra billion off the national debt for all that it’s worth.
And they are both right. In one critical way, this election is like 1992. It may not have the same result (I think a triumphant return to No 10 for the Prime Minister highly unlikely), nor quite the same issues, but the campaign and the exact outcome will depend on the same central question. Do you trust the Leader of the Opposition?
Neil Kinnock was defeated because people didn’t trust him. The fiddly policy stuff was very much second order. People thought that he was basically a traditional Labour figure of the sort they didn’t like and that he didn’t have what it takes to be prime minister. As the campaign wore on, the undecided voters turned against him and back to John Major.
That is what will decide this election too. Whether the Conservatives have a proper majority or are merely the largest party will depend on their view of David Cameron. Because that is all there is left for undecideds to decide about.
They have already decided that it is time for a change. More than 80 per cent of voters believe that it is time for a change. This is a very strong political sentiment that is hard for any governing party to overcome.
The anti-incumbent feeling produced by the expenses scandal has added to this mood. Nothing that is likely to happen during the next five weeks or so is going to shake it. This argument is over. Voters do think it is time for a novice.
Undecideds are also pretty decided about Mr Brown. And not in a good way. They do not think he is up to the job. Even the Westminster case for him — that he may be useless on telly, but he is a man of substance — is a view that, besides the party faithful, reaches only to the outskirts of Westminster. Swing voters, harshly, do not credit him even with substance.
Tired is the word they most associate with Mr Brown. And again, this is unlikely to change. Yesterday the Prime Minister’s advisers had him launch the campaign flanked by Harriet Harman and Peter Mandelson, with Ed Balls lurking behind him, as if someone had made a special effort to gather Britain’s least popular politicians together for a family photo. I make no comment except to note that 13 years ago new Labour would have been able to come up with a better idea for an opening photocall.
And undecideds are decided, too, about the Tories. They are not properly reassured. They still think the Conservatives are for the better-off, and not people like them. The Tory brand has improved a bit, but not enough.
But they think — are on the cusp of believing, really — that Mr Cameron might be different. They regard him as fresh, vital and a different sort of Conservative. They believe that he has suffered adversity, something that offsets his privileged upbringing.
Crucially, they think his family experiences mean that he can be believed when he says that he will protect the NHS. They think all of these things, but they aren’t sure. And they also worry about whether he is strong — would he hold the others in the party in check.
So this will be the Cameron election. You could see from the pictures yesterday — the Tory leader in a hospital, jacket off, sleeves rolled up — that the Conservatives understand what they have to do during this campaign. And if Labour is any good, they will understand it too and work to undermine the most important asset the Tories have.
What do I think? Well it isn’t what one would put on one’s CV, but David Cameron is better than Neil Kinnock