Cassilis

Polly Toynbee's piece in today's Guardian has delighted more than a few Tory bloggers (Iain Dale, Mr E, Newmania to pick a few) but the reaction has reminded me why I can never entirely 'get' partisan blogging and do my best to steer clear of it.

Some of the gloating is understandable - in the past Polly's been a little too ready to canonise Gordon and she made some extravagant claims for his imminent premiership at the start of the year so she can't really complain if some of that is called out now. But in one sense there's nothing dishonest in what she's saying - in simple terms she's spent 3/4 years hoping / promising Brown will be better and today's piece is a recognition that perhaps he's not. I can see why that might delight Tories keen for Brown's demise but I can't see why Polly should come in for stick over it? I had a very brief email exchange with her today over the article pointing out the likely reaction and asking her what she thought it did for Labour's electoral prospects - this is part of her reply:

"yes it's damaging to Labour to write that they are in danger of badly losing their way through electoral cynicism - and the election with it [but] at the election I shall still judge they would be better than the others, even if only a bit"

Tories might come to a different judgement on that but her reasoning is sound enough. Polly's attack on Brown today is no more vicious or coruscating than the dozens of attacks Melanie Philips or Simon Heffer have launched at Cameron over the last couple of years but in general the Tory bloggers who are happy to flag the former as some sort of watershed moment have happily ignored the latter because it didn't suit their angle - it's this partisan approach I never quite understand. The central thrust of Polly's article is that Brown's courtship of floating voters in the marginals has caused him to lose sight of his social democratic roots - countless commentators have alleged that Cameron's courtship of the same constituency has threatened his relationship with traditional Conservative supporters. What's the difference?

In short the difference is two good weeks for Cameron and two awful weeks for Brown - nothing more, nothing less. Those buoyed by Polly's attack on their nemesis today would do well to read Iain's other piece in the Telegraph today for a bit of a reality check...

Labels: Politics