THE GUARDIAN – Leader: Would it have been so very difficult for Gordon Brown to have spoken plainly yesterday when asked why Britain will not be going to the polls in November, as he had wanted? There was no requirement for an election and there should have been little shame in calling one off, were it not for the fact that he left the decision at least a fortnight too late and went about announcing it through whispers and half-truths and then an evasive and prerecorded interview. He could have announced his decision under live, open questioning at his press conference this morning.
Like a child squirming after being caught out at last over some transgression, the prime minister offered every excuse apart from the obvious truth: that he had wanted and planned for an election and the mandate that would follow it, but that the outcome became uncertain, the late autumn timing unfortunate and the opposition artificially boosted by promises of tax cuts that he had not expected. If he had said this - rather than blustering on about his vision and a spurious duty to consider an election because people had called for it - he might have emerged a less diminished figure. David Cameron had a point yesterday when he said that the public are not fools and see through pretence.
How did a man whose strength lay in his powers as a political strategist allow himself to become trapped in such an obvious way? His advisers are already blaming each other and none now claim to have really wanted a contest. But someone did, because the election had become not just a possibility but something approaching a likelihood - until the Conservative party conference. Government business was adjusted to suit the campaign timetable, with the consequence that announcements on Iraq and public spending will crash into each other when parliament returns and others, on Crossrail and the NHS, were not made to parliament at all. All this serves to damage Mr Brown's claim to be a straight-dealing leader for a country exhausted by political deceit. This was seen as his greatest strength, until now. He’s mortal after all (more)
THE DAILY MAIL:
After the election that never was, Brown faces the music By Benedict Brogan and Jane Merrick
Mark Alexander
