The Conservatives have been under-estimating the magnitude of the New Labour challenge ever since 1994. They never got to grips with Blair—and the same is now true of their relation to Brown. Instead of getting down to real work, policy detail and number-crunching the Tories have opted for mere personalisation with their shallow complaints about Brown being the ‘road-block to reform.’ Whatever one’s view of the prime minister he is a prodigiously hard worker-as are members of his immediate circle such as Ed Balls. The only leading Tory to match them in that department in recent years has been Michael Howard and there isn’t a single member of this shadow cabinet who can match the Brownite work rate. The prime minister’s edge and drive used to be dismissed as proof of his ‘obsessive’ character. But the electorate seems to rather like this seriousness-rather than the detached dilettantism which now defines the opposition’s high command.
In all the Tories’ war-gaming over the past year no one seems to have taken seriously the possibility of an autumn election. Sub-contracting out the work on policy development to various commissions must have seemed a cute trick at the time. Now its real reason is very obvious: ‘top Tories’ are just too lazy to do the work themselves. No wonder we hear so much from them about the need to get the work-life balance sorted. They’re at home most of the time already.