Let's call the whole thing off
- 9 Oct 07, 02:04 PM
“We’re off!” That was the message last week. This week it’s changed to “It’s off!” How a few words from the prime minister can transform the political climate.
For many weeks now people have kept asking me, “So will there be an autumn election?”. I’m supposed to know these things, so it’s been tempting to come up with some certainty – “definitely, November the first” - or - “no way, the polls just don’t stack up”. But the sad truth is, I haven’t had the first idea. Nor to be fair, has anyone else, including the prime minister, who told us in his monthly news conference this week that he’d been thinking about it, but hadn’t made up his mind till the party conference season was over.
I remember some weeks ago when one of our political correspondents found out that Ed Miliband, the Cabinet Office minister, was writing Labour’s manifesto. That was interpreted by some as meaning the election was on. But as our very shrewd political editor pointed out, it could just as easily be the Labour equivalent of “BBC News bosses hold crisis talks on election,” which in reality was me phoning up a colleague at TV Centre to say it might be an idea to have a meeting sometime soon about the possibility of an early campaign.
In the hothouse of the political conferences in Brighton, Bournemouth and Blackpool, election fever took hold – not just in the media, but amongst the politicians too, with some serious briefing going on from people very close to the PM – and an election felt like a real possibility.
So the last couple of weeks saw us go into election planning overdrive. Teams were hastily put together to follow the party leaders round the country; discussions were held with the other broadcasters about “pooling” morning press conferences; half-term leave was cancelled; plans were set in place to bring correspondents back from round the world. For a day or two, the hot favourite was Sunday 4th November... until a wise head in the Political Research Unit pointed out that the government would have to pass a new law to make that possible. We even went through a period of consulting long range weather forecasts and checking daylight hours for the possible election dates. Down the road from Labour’s conference centre in Bournemouth the tarot card reader did a roaring trade...
Then on Saturday Gordon Brown inviited Andrew Marr into Downing Street to announce his decision (watch the interview here). If someone one day wanted to make a drama about this period, in the style of Dennis Potter, Andrew Marr would sit down opposite the prime minister, who would then pull his most serious sober face, and quietly start singing:
- “You say eether and I say eyether,
- You say neether and I say nyther;
- Eether, eyether, neether, nyther
- Let’s call the whole thing off!”
The two would then tap-dance all the way down Downing Street, as Nick Robinson (first, I’m pleased to say) and Adam Boulton broke the news to the nation.
So no election for now, and for the foreseeable future. But at least we have some plans in place for when it does happen. And who says politics isn’t fun.
Gary Smith is editor, political news
