The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week set the stage to announce a November 1 general election next week. A poisonous row has erupted between the two main political parties in the United Kingdom over Brown’s decision to fly to Iraq in the middle of the Opposition Conservative (Tory) Party’s annual conference.
In a surprise intervention that had not been cleared with Conservative Party leader David Cameron, former prime minister Sir John Major accused Brown of breaking his promise to end ‘a decade of spin and deceit†by travelling to Baghdad to announce the withdrawal of 1 000 British troops by Christmas, breaking his commitment to tell Parliament next week.
The Iraq trip is part of a carefully crafted timetable that will culminate in two successive House of Commons statements at the beginning of next week on domestic spending and Iraq, which may clear the way for the announcement of a November poll.
As the political temperature rose another notch, an affronted Major said: ‘What is pretty unattractive is the nods and winks, the hints, the cynicism, the belief that every decision is being taken because it is marching to the drumbeat of an election rather than to the drumbeat of solid, proper government. He has been letting the speculation run riot for some time. It clearly is an attempt at destabilisation of the opposition parties. I don’t think it will work, and it may well backfire. It certainly is not the circumstances in which to take serious military decisions if that is what he has done.â€
Liam Fox, the Opposition defence spokesperson, accused Brown of ‘shameless and cynical electioneering†when it emerged that the return of 500 of the British troops had already been announced in September, and 200 had flown back to Britain.
Cameron’s office regards the episode as part of a gathering picture of an over-political prime minister too intent on short-term tactical gain.
The government defended itself from the Tory taunts, with the prime minister’s spokesperson saying it was preposterous to describe the visit to Baghdad as electioneering. He said Brown had to travel to Iraq during the conference for security reasons and had no option but to make the troop announcement this week as the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was broadcasting the agreement to the Iraqi press after the two sides met.
But there was mounting evidence that Brown is planning to take the gamble of a snap poll, in effect launching his election campaign with two Commons statements early next week. In the first, he will promise further troop withdrawals from Iraq, and in the pre-budget report and comprehensive spending review he will set out the government’s spending priorities, including health and education, to 2010/11.
The Treasury confirmed that the spending review is ready for publication at the beginning of next week, one of the final pieces in Brown’s jigsaw and a last opportunity to trump the populist tax-cutting announcements at the Tory party conference. It is likely that the two statements will be made on separate days, leaving the prime minister time to go to the Queen on Tuesday evening.
Brown also brought forward the outcome of the interim review into the health service to Thursday. On Friday he will try to seal a range of marginals in the capital by giving the go-ahead for the much-delayed multibillion Crossrail link between east and west London. Brown will hold final talks with his closest advisers at the weekend, examining polls in the marginals for any signs that Cameron has cut the Labour lead below 5%, a lead that could easily erode. —