Gordon Brown's sudden lifting in the polls, in the head to head numbers, on issues and on personal qualities is all the more striking because it follows months of bad press. Gloomy commentators reported the suicidial depression of unnamed ministers on the prospects of a Brown premiership.
Meanwhile David Cameron spent the first period of his leadership, up to grammar schools, in a kind of flacid, golden haze of good publicity. He must now be cursing his good press, just as Brown must now be delighting in his previous bad write-ups.
The consquence of Cameron's effortless ascendency was to breed a palpable sense of entitlement, and worse a kind of laziness. Tory spokespeople, particuarly George Osborne, started talking about the next Tory government as though it was a racing cert, counting perhaps on the public's well known love of tories who are pleased with themselves. And contrast Cameron's relaxation after his very good local government results this year with Tony Blair as leader. Blair took every piece of good fortune as an opportunity to put further pressure on his party to change. The sense from TeamCameron was that they had already crossed the finish line, that the work of reform the Conservative party was finished.
Meanwhile Brown has benefitted from lowering expectations. Much of the commentary on him fostered the impression that far from being a consumate politician, he was going to wander into No10 dressed in a stained donkey jacket and the proceed to lose Labour every vote south of the Tweed. He has also had the chance to tailor his first moves against the criticism. For example by devolving power and by making an asset out of his less showy style.
This simian is damned if he can draw a lesson from it all. Except too much good press can be too much of a good thing.
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