election

for a long while gordon brown was being told he need to call an election in order to get his own mandate. without that mandate his premiership was not legitimate. this neatly side steps the fact that we elect the party and not the leader.
then gordon surprised us all by actually doing a deft job of running the country in the face of several major calamities.
(who would have thought it? he'd only been the most successful chancellor ever...)

cameron's poll ratings went down the toilet.
this time the talk of elections cames from those who thought gordon would walk it
gordon didn't quash this at the time and say "hey no need to call a snap election the labour party has a mandate to run the country for several more years yet. lets buckle down and get on with the good work." nope he stayed quiet and teased.

the result?
cameron was gifted a tory conference where they all agreed with each other, no one broke ranks and everyone thought that they had a chance. (they don't but that is another story altogether). not only that it allowed the tories to talk tough, in the style of the playground, about how if gordon brown didn't call the election he was a chicken (they may as well have started chanting "come on if you think you are hard enough").

tactically brown made a mistake by not stopping the speculation over the election.
now that cameron has gotten a bit of a boost in the polls (seemingly because he can talk for an hour without notes - sheesh make me president of the world now! and because the conservatives didn't go into their usual meltdown mode. why do i say tha? simply because it is doubtful anyone has been suckered by the "new conservatism for todays challenges" rhetoric, the policies seem to be no different from any of the previous formulations on tax, europe, immigration, family and the state).
(yowsa that was a bit of a digression...)

anyway cameron's boost in the polls now gives him the upper hand with the election. most commentator would agree that cameron would rather not have an election now. yet the fact he can call out brown shows just how galvanised the tories have been over the prospect of the election.
if gordon brown declines the offer of an election this year - then he will be portrayed as being scared of losing the tories.
if he does agree to the election then he will be seen as a bully who has gone to the country years before he needed to just because he wanted to capitalise on the poll ratings,

just this once gordon has been outflanked.
what he needs to do now is say: "no election - i am getting on with the job of running the country".
when he utters those words we can watch cameron stew and start counting down the days until the conservative start their in fighting again.

go on gordon - you know it makes sense.