Martin Kettle on what the polls are really saying
Hat tip to Mike Smithson at Political Betting for recommending this article by Martin Kettle in the Guardian.
Kettle's article "Not even Cameron can control the politics of anger" suggests that the next election will take place against a backdrop of enormous hostility to government - the present government in particular, but to some extent the whole political system has been discredited and whoever wins the next election will have a very difficult time.
He has some astute comments on the "self deception" of some Labour politicians and supporters who appear to think that the next election is "game on" because a very modest firming of their position has some opinion polls showing them only nine points behind. As he says
"It is one thing to be misled by polls and local elections that are actually in your favour, as Harold Wilson was when he called the 1970 election. It is quite another thing to get carried away – as some in the Labour party are – by polls that are simply not in their favour."
After pointing out that Brown's "class war" politics are likely to surrender the centre ground to the opposition parties, perhaps for a long time, Kettle goes on to conclude that
"In the end, however, not even Cameron can control the politics of anger. As the first election since the expenses scandal, this contest will take place amid a mood of hostility towards politicians that at times seems almost revolutionary in its force, fully encouraged by the media ...
"I believe the modern media now has a collective oppositional self-interest not just to particular parties or class interests, as in the past, but to the very idea of government and politics itself. How far even Cameron can prosper in such a system is one of the many questions that will face him and us in 2010."
Kettle's article "Not even Cameron can control the politics of anger" suggests that the next election will take place against a backdrop of enormous hostility to government - the present government in particular, but to some extent the whole political system has been discredited and whoever wins the next election will have a very difficult time.
He has some astute comments on the "self deception" of some Labour politicians and supporters who appear to think that the next election is "game on" because a very modest firming of their position has some opinion polls showing them only nine points behind. As he says
"It is one thing to be misled by polls and local elections that are actually in your favour, as Harold Wilson was when he called the 1970 election. It is quite another thing to get carried away – as some in the Labour party are – by polls that are simply not in their favour."
After pointing out that Brown's "class war" politics are likely to surrender the centre ground to the opposition parties, perhaps for a long time, Kettle goes on to conclude that
"In the end, however, not even Cameron can control the politics of anger. As the first election since the expenses scandal, this contest will take place amid a mood of hostility towards politicians that at times seems almost revolutionary in its force, fully encouraged by the media ...
"I believe the modern media now has a collective oppositional self-interest not just to particular parties or class interests, as in the past, but to the very idea of government and politics itself. How far even Cameron can prosper in such a system is one of the many questions that will face him and us in 2010."
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