Marginal impact

In today’s Guardian, New Statesman editor John Kampfner seems to answer ‘no’ to the question his magazine posed on its front cover a couple of weeks ago: is it already game over in the Brown v Cameron battle?

Kampfner points out that while the Tories have of late appeard to be having a rough ride (by-election failures, poor opinion poll ratings etc.), they have been quietly plugging away behind the scenes, pouring money into key marginals that will decide the outcome of the next election.

‘Elections are won and lost by a democratically unrepresentative number of floating voters in a small number of constituencies,’ says Kampfner. ‘It would not take a large swing for many of these seats to change hands.’

Brown might be ‘gladdening Labour hearts for the first time in a long time’ but what will happen when playing to the party faithful looks like it might risk alienating the privileged (predominantly middle class) minority who live in swing seats?

As Alan Johnson argued at May’s Progress/Fabian Society deputy leadership hustings, if Labour were to adopt a policy of banning of grammar schools it would be greeted with applause by many party members. The downside would be droves of voters in Gloucester and Slough taking their votes to Cameron. ‘If we want to carry out our policies we have to be in power and we have to be aware in deciding our policies what that will do for our chances of being elected to government,’ said Johnson. ‘Real politik’.

Perhaps electoral reform wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.