A clever trick by the Tories to call the Henley by-election to coincide with Gordon Brown's first anniversary as Prime Minister. Labour was bound to do badly in what was always going to be a Con-LibDem fight.
Dream scenario for David Cameron: his party retained the seat vacated by London Mayor Boris Johnson with a majority of more than 10,000. Labour lowered expectations by predicting it would lose its deposit and come fourth. It couldn't even get that right, coming a humiliating fifth behind the Greens and the BNP.
Ministers admit the result was "terrible." Although it will remind jittery Labour MPs about how far the party has fallen under Brown's leadership, my hunch is that it will be dismissed by most Labour folk as "just a by-election" and protest vote and won't trigger an immediate leadership crisis for Brown.
The party's MPs are now looking to the Labour conference in September for Brown to show some signs of a recovery. The are signs that the Government has finally put together a more coherent domestic agenda - Brown's push on public service reforms today, Health Minister Lord Darzi's NHS review on Monday. But whether the voters notice it is another matter. Labour's disaster in Henley suggests they are no longer listening to Brown because they have already made up their minds about him. Ominous.
The by-election result will not plunge the Labour Party into crisis it is merely highly embarrassing for Gordon Brown; already struggling to manage his party's (let alone the nation's) finances. The party is already dependent on the Unions for c. 90% of its funding, it cannot afford to haemorrhage more cash lest it needs to start lurching to the left in order to raise more funds!
Perhaps more worrying however, is that Brown's first year in office has been so dire as to encourage more voters to chose the BNP over Labour. The Government needs to stop pandering to political correctness that is alienating its traditional white working class support base if a resurgence by the far right is to be halted.
Posted by: 54 | Saturday, 28 June 2008 at 08:12 AM