Gordon's lost battle

This is a proper way for a cautious politician to act. But it has a number of disadvantages. Like everyone else, Gordon Brown makes some bad decisions, which cannot be maintained. His process of decision-making is a lonely one which depends too much on his own views and those of a small number of long-term associates and subordinates. This narrowness makes him seem detached from the currents of public opinion.

His decisions can also seem to be too indecisive, because this process is a secretive one which takes time. Gordon Brown seems to find political crises a good deal more difficult than purely administrative ones. He was as self-confident as a permanent secretary might have been in handling the summer floods and foot-and-mouth disease, but has vacillated over the decision of an early general election which is the biggest political decision of his administration so far.

He now has decided not to call an early election. During the summer, he allowed expectation to run away with him. The public expectation of an autumn election could have been deflated at any time by an early denial from the prime minister. It was allowed to grow until almost everyone was expecting an election, whether they thought it was a good idea or not.

Until last weekend, the public opinion polls tended to support the idea of an early election. Labour support in the polls was moving up, as a result of Gordon Brown's own initial honeymoon and then as a usual response to the Labour Party conference. Ten days ago, two polls even gave the Labour Party a lead in double figures. At that point, Gordon Brown himself had almost certainly succumbed to the temptation of an election.

One can understand that. Gordon Brown has dreamt of becoming Prime Minister for many years. His tense ambition prevented him from having a good relationship with Tony Blair. If he could have won a new majority at a new election for a new parliament, that would have boosted his personal confidence and strengthened his political position. He must have read those late September polls with relief as well as enthusiasm.

However, the prime minister was creating a trap for himself. He was right to take account of the polls, but they were never as good as they looked. After an artificial summer with publicity concentrated on the new prime minister and his party, public opinion was volatile and so were the polls.

In recent elections the Liberal Democrats have taken votes from Labour during the campaign itself. The average is about five per cent. No allowance was made for that in the form in which the polls were published.

The combination of buoyant polls, the Brown honeymoon, and the party conferences created a new image for the prime minister, but they also created a new image for David Cameron. He is an exceptionally effective conference speaker, the best I have heard since the days of Iain Macleod, a minister under Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath. Cameron is much better than Brown, but he is also much better than the most recent Conservative leaders, except for William Hague.

The newspapers rightly perceived that the threat of an early Election had put David Cameron under great pressure. He was going to have to make a speech at the Conservative Party conference which had to be better than good —it had to be sensational.

If Gordon Brown had been employed to build up interest in the Cameron speech, he could hardly have done a better job. David Cameron duly delivered a brilliant speech. In late September Cameron seemed to be fighting for his political life; in early October he had set himself free.

Naturally enough, the opinion polls in the last week have recorded a very favourable public reaction. Labour have themselves enjoyed a somewhat artificial lead in the polls, at a very volatile period. Within a week that has vanished, and has now been replaced by a substantial Conservative lead.

Gordon Brown would probably have needed a ten-point lead for three months before he could safely have called an autumn election. He got a ten-point lead but it only lasted for three days. The polls at present suggest that there might be a hung Parliament if there were an early election.

Any ordinary analysis of the polling evidence suggests that an early election would be an unthinkable risk for Gordon Brown. It is not a risk one could expect him to take.

Of course, with hindsight one can see that Brown should never have allowed the expectation of an autumn election to get out of hand. He should have discouraged it at a time when his closest associates were actually talking it up. That was a serious mistake, which strengthened David Cameron who is now naturally perceived as the victor. Cameron had the task of making it difficult or impossible for Labour to hold an early election without unacceptable risk.

He has succeeded, which is a victory for the Conservatives. No prime minister would go to the country two and a half years before he has to, after only four months in office, if he is behind in the polls.

The public are likely to see this as the outcome of a contest of wills, and strength of will is decisive in political leadership. The electorate is often a better judge of personality than of policy. The most successful prime minister is the one whose will prevails.

There are now many difficulties ahead for the Government, which has lost the initial momentum of the Brown administration. The Lisbon summit on October 17-18 will determine the new European constitution. No doubt Gordon Brown will still get his red lines; Tony Blair wrote them into much earlier drafts years ago. But Brown will have to come back to Britain to explain why the British electorate will not be allowed the referendum which Labour promised in the 2005 election. That would be difficult enough if we were having an Election —it becomes even harder when the opportunity of an election has been raised, then relinquished.

If not in November, which is now out of the question, when will the election come? Perhaps in 2009 or more plausibly in 2010. I suspect that the option of November was Brown's last and most promising opportunity. The polls have rewarded Cameron for his courage, but also penalised Gordon Brown for his vacillation. If he truly wanted an early election, he should have called it, not for November, but for last July.

Lord William Rees-Mogg is a former editor of the Times. This column first appeared in the Mail on Sunday