Gordon Brown will throw us into a permanent 'permanent campaign' with six months of tactics to highlight the supposedly negative differences between Labour and the Tories. In detail, this is not as sophisticated as it sounds. It is a reprised opportunity for Brown to reel out one tactic: set up a policy, demand that the opposition support it, and attack them for [assign negative quality] if they don't.
The
gap that Brown must bridge is not one of opposition. Before hauling
himself up the polls, Brown must ensure that Labour's policies appeal
and that the opposition will not match them. We can foretell that the manifesto will be a list of entitlements, all of which are designed to appeal to important voter groups without apparent cost. They fall back on the client state.