1 min read
ByStephen Pollard, Stephen Pollard
I'm back: Yom Kippur is over, I have eaten (too much) and it's pouring - so it's time to resume posting.
I can't make up my mind if I am excited by the prospect of being on the other side of the world if there is indeed an autumn election (we'll be honeymooning in Australia) or frustrated that I'll be away from the action.
I was away for much of the 2001 campaign and can't say I regretted it. Given that I am a political obsessive, I have a strange attitude to elections. They are supposed to set the pulses racing and all that. But I find them dull. (Don't get me wrong - the act of putting an X in the ballot box is still thrilling and, in its way, moving, given how lucky we are to live in a free society.) The campaigning is so puerile and the set piece interviews so formulaic, I just metaphorically close my eyes for the duration of the campaigns and will them to be over asap. And I positively loath the election-night parties that one gets invited too. I now just stay at home and have fun flicking over the channels all night.
For me, it's not elections which are exciting. It's what happens in between - governing and policy. Give me a White Paper on NHS reform or a study of City Academies and I'm purring with pleasure.
I guess that's why I find the current torrent of speculation over the date of the election mind-numbingly tedious. My eyes glaze over when I see a headline like this:
Election fever rages as Gordon Brown's lead grows. Not in this part of Finchley it doesn't.
For what it's worth, though, I think Mr Brown would be bonkers not to call an election now. He knows the lie of the land; who knows how things will look in May?
The only argument I can think of for holding back is that, with every passing day, David Cameron looks less of a potential PM and more of an unprincipled PR lightweight. The more I see of him, the more my dislike grows.
And - backed by my entirely unscientific survey of the people with whom I broke the fast on Saturday night - he's already regarded with derision. So why wait any longer,Mr B?