The Boris Blitz and what it betokens

 ... aside from the fact that the man is utterly shameless and very desperate indeed, a dangerous combination.

Few who pay any attention whatever to anything other than the lowest form of social meejah output can have missed the Boris Blitz of apologia, stunts, diversionary announcements and other attempts to "regain control of the narrative".  We can confidently expect him to visit a slit trench "somewhere in the Ukraine" shortly.  Sadly, we can also be confident he will spend epic quantities of our money on ill-conceived attention-grabbing policies.

It signals two things worthy of note: one specific and one timeless.

(a) He has some competent advisers.  They may not be in the Cummings class in any particular dimension (recall his extraordinary performance in the Autumn of 2019), but they know the basics of their trade (mostly, Lynton Crosby's Dead Cat** strategy).  And they must be broadly "loyal" because, given their shameful brief, they are advising intelligently and comprehensively.

(b) Government always has the whip-hand - or at least, a whip-hand - because like it or not (and Starmer won't like it at all) it can always set the news agenda and has a truly vast array of levers at its disposal: with a little creativity, even more levers than are obvious.  This is something Mandelson always knew instinctively, and exploited to the full.  Cummings likewise, in that Autumn 2019 campaign (proroguing Parliament!)  However, a surprising number of "experienced" politicians don't.  Probably the total lack of creativity, of course. 

It's why the oft-heard suggestion "this is an Election to lose" is always wrong.  Power, when held in the right hands, is always the right answer.  It's like: who doesn't want choice?

Incidentally, none of the above acknowledges Boris' strongest card, which is that the Energy Crisis buys him guaranteed time - and time is always also of the essence.  Playing for time is a pathetic business, but often the very core of political strategy.

Not even Starmer, I think, wants to be PM until after April ... even though that flies in the face of my dictum above.  Lack of creativity, see.

ND

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** Before this Crosby coinage became the generally-accepted nomenclature, I used to think of it as the "Royal Yacht" strategy.  Back in 1997 after the great Blair sweep-to-power, Blair disappeared off for an extended summer hol ... leaving Mandelson in charge (amazing to recall).  Several things started to go wrong rather publicly and embarrassingly - the one I remember specifically was the Millennium Dome project.  So Mandelson announced the Royal Yacht was to be scrapped, and immediately grabbed all the front pages.  So easy - when you realise what's possible. 

UK Fracking Saga: Here Endeth the First Chapter

And so it came to pass that Boris the Populist, observing the extreme unpopularity of fracking in many northern parliamentary constituencies of a Conservative bent, decided to call an end to the experiment.  

This, I believe, is part of what the sage Lynton Crosby calls scraping the barnacles off the boat before an election, in stark contrast to the imbecile May who danced into the 2017 gig allowing people to think she was about to offer (inter alia) a free vote on foxhunting.  FFS

And who's to say Boris is wrong?  One can of course always work up a righteous lather over points of principle and U-turns etc: but does it really matter?   No.  The moment has passed.  It had become abundantly evident that, despite the epic quantities of natural gas the frackies reckon they've identified within these shores, it would have been a very long time indeed - if ever - before it could be turned into a windfall for the economy.  The primary beneficiaries thus far have been PR companies and the serried ranks of Plods on overtime.  

Maybe things could have been done differently and better, but they weren't.  Meanwhile there's a global glut of gas anyway, which will continue unless the Chinese accelerate their usage beyond what Russia can easily supply from entirely new eastern gasfields.  The Chinese don't show much sign of this (nor India, for that matter), despite a great deal of wishful thinking in all the great gas producing centres around the globe.  

But if the glut dries up a bit, there are any number of faraway places with equally epic resources of shale gas that will be much easier to develop than hereabouts - because there are no people in the vicinity to object; and/or no democracy.  Algeria springs quickly to mind.

And, of course, if things change utterly, well, that UK shale gas ain't going anywhere ...

Here endeth the UK shale gas saga, for the next short while at least.

ND

From The Front: On The Streets

Rightly or wrongly I get the impression not so many C@W commenters are Party activists.  So here's a first-hand report for you

Quite by coincidence my local party was holding its annual 1-day local government conference this Saturday, so timing rather good for expanding the scope a bit.  There was a big, big turnout - and you had to book your place long before the Announcement of St Teresa - including lots of youngsters, reversing a longstanding trend.  (As mentioned before, recruiting has been way up since the Referendum, including heartening numbers of youth and "BAME".) 

I have to report that morale was exceptionally high.  Everyone said "no complacency: maybe the punters are hacked off, etc etc", but it was all very up-beat.  When you read the anti-leadership bile in Labour Uncut, it is hard to imagine anything comparable in a Labour gathering right now.  We fixed a second, ad hoc meeting for 10:00 am this morning (Sunday) to distribute leaflets for a 100%, whole-constituency delivery in a single day to get the show on the road.  Around 150 folks showed up (for those of you not engaged in local stuff, that is Quite Big: I may post the photos later) and we duly delivered 100% today, it works out at about 200-240 leaflets each: piece of piss on a fine day.

Speaking for Mrs D & meself, out delivering we found several campaign posters already in people's windows (vs virtually none in 2015, when everyone was hull-down for anticipated nastiness), and the folk we encountered in their front gardens were very cheery.  Nothing like Brenda from Bristol or any of that negativist BBC crap.

I realise there will be loads of you for whom the dusty details of doorstep politics are of little interest: but let me tell you, this has the best street-feel for the Tories in our London marginal seat since Boris first took on Ken (and, before that, since the GE of 1983).  Given that everyone is on the alert for complacency - and I'd say Big Lynton Crosby probably has an eye on that, too - this might indeed be an utter rout.

ND    

The Strategic Uselessness of Miliband

Earlier in the week Mr Quango recounted his surprise at Miliband's ultimate failure to cross the line, given the long list of advantages he enjoyed.  As Bill said, BE and I were less surprised - see this from 2013, for example; and by around February (2015) as you may have gathered, this dyed-in-the-wool partisan wicked-Tory had become really quite optimistic.

Partly this was because the hard painstaking slog in my local marginal was clearly beginning to pay off for the MP and his battalion of foot-sloggers.  Much as one prefers wars of maneouvre over wars of attrition, the bold decisive stroke over the hard grind - sometimes only the long slog will do the trick.  Hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle, as the US Marines are wont to say.

Partly it was what I could see of the Crosby-Osborne strategy at work, which was clearly achieving the modern goal of getting inside the other guys' decision-loop (the Northern Powerhouse initiative being a case in point).

But it was also built on a foundation of confidence that Miliband was a strategic loser - which goes beyond his splendidly 'un-Prime-Ministerial' demeanour (Kinnock syndrome) and his proclivity for periodic gaffes.  I shall explain.

From his election as leader right up until election day, Mili was widely reported to exude a calm, other-worldy certainty of 2015 triumph.  UK electoral history was always broadly against him, as everyone knew: the economy was more-or-less bound to recover over a five-year period; and few losing parties have ever turned things around in one cycle.  And yet he was calm and certain.

This is crazy, lazy stuff, at once messianic and (whenever any modern politico-atheist reckons history is on his side) Marxist - and we know where he got that from.  The practical outworking of this heartwarming optimistic fatalism in terms of his electoral thinking was the famous '35 per cent' strategy, on which Mr Google will furnish you a heap of references, many of them derisive, many of those from the Labour camp itself.

Now of course it might indeed have been possible (just about) to get a Labour majority with 35% of the popular vote: so far, so good, but that's not the point.  I tend to set these things in the military idiom, the relevant slogan being:  if you want to hold a river, you must hold both banks.  In any walk of life, if you want to stand still, you must advance.  In Mili's case: if you want to scrape home with 35%, you must be targetting 40.   If you target 35 (or, still worse, if you think 35 is yours for the taking), you will get ... the fruits of your laziness.

But this isn't just a matter of degree: targetting 40% doesn't just cost you 40/35 times as much campaign cash + effort over a 35% goal.  It's not just laziness that a lame target engenders; nor is it just a matter of diminishing returns, although that's a factor too.  In order to target 40% realistically, the policies you must run with will be utterly different to what you'll be satisfied with for a 35% campaign.  For 40, you really need to push out beyond your true comfort zone.  But Mili ... Mili was wedded to a very comfortable zone indeed, a zone of zen.

As the months passed I became ever more convinced - from both media reports and his public demeanour - that he was possessed of a belief in historical inevitability; and that this would fatally undermine his commitment to driving forward all the necessary hard thinking and hard work.   But since there was nothing historically compelling about this particular belief*, and additionally because God helps those who help themselves (which was the Tories how were operating, at both local and strategic levels), I became increasingly sanguine about the whole affair.

ND
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* In truth, during the period May 2010 - May 2015 the only person entitled to believe in 'inevitable' was George Osborne, as regards the economy more-or-less righting itself in that timeframe.

Devo-Manc: Another Serious Power-Play

One of my perennial themes here has been: 

• governments have their hands on the biggest levers 
• a government strategist with a bit of creativity can always drive the agenda

Regrettably it is usually people like Mandelson who actually understand this.  Brown sort-of understood it, except he deployed it negatively in his 2009-2010 scorched-earth campaign, analysed by C@W at the time.  Anyhow, Osborne understands it too (and of course Crosby).

So now we see another serious power play, and it's well up in the creativity stakes (relative to the usual nonsense) - Devo-Manc and, in particular, the NHS-devo aspect dropped onto the unsuspecting Labour Party yesterday by Osborne.  Yes, he couldn't resist dropping this bombshell himself.

And yes, Labour has been comprehensively wrong-footed.  Oh how they hate devolution!  So now they must spend a week (out of the ten weeks remaining) cobbling together a response, which won't be easy because the Mancs (almost entirely Labour) are in favour.  (Hell, Andy Burnham - panicky and instinctively against it - is a north-west MP.)  And Tessa Jowell likes the sound of it for London.  And every regional newspaper will be majoring on it for weeks to come - even if the Gruaniad relegated what the New Statesman called the biggest story of the day to a sub-page on its labyrinthine website (oh how the lefties hate devolution).

We may confidently assume this initiative is part of a rolling barrage.  It wouldn't be difficult to bundle Mili off the field with the devo-bombardment alone, for which there is plenty more ammunition still to be fired: but I'm guessing that another flank will be opened up soon, to reinforce his lethal disequilibrium.

This is gearing up to be one of the great election campaigns.  It's not before time and I'm loving every minute.  There's no such thing as an election to lose.

ND

Wars, Rumours of Wars, and the FTSE 100

What colourful times we live in, eh?  A single day's headlines include:

• Russians limbering up for the expected assault on Mariupol  
• Cameron commits military 'advisers' to Ukraine*
• Ms Green the greenie publicly melts down into a puddle of green goo
• the FTSE 100 reaches a record high!

Wow.  The next several months are going to be astonishing.

Seriously for a moment, I take all these items as grist to Crosby's mill.  We know that there will be all manner of happenstance making the minnow-parties look stupid - only the SNP are moderately proof against this.  Of course, Mili will take succour from any further green meltdown, but Cameron will take still more from the combination of war abroad and UKIP looking flaky at home.   I think he's mad to engage in Ukraine: power-mad, that is.  Proof of serious intent at a no-holds-barred elelction strategy.  This is William Pitt stuff: you gotta admire a pure power-play.

ND

* truth be told, UK military 'advisers' have been in Ukraine, on and off, for a number of years, much good it has done

Doom, Gloom - and Reasons to be Cheerful

The news from overseas is pretty awful:  but round my way the sun shining this morning, I'm feeling bouyant for a number of reasons - and the Tories are ahead in the polls!  Cue the inevitable CiF thread, further adding to the jollity.

What's more, the same poll has 'NHS' as the most important single issue by a mile, having previously contested the #1 slot with other issues.  If Mili, howling 'dodgy Tories' at the top of his nasal voice, can't hang on to his earlier poll lead against that backdrop, ...

I shan't rub it in for all you 'kippers out there.

Having always been in the camp of everything to play for / Crosby knows the score / no such thing as 'this is an election to lose' - well, I still am.  Couldn't claim to have anticipated the SNP thing, in fact quite the reverse, I kinda thought the referendum result would put them back in their box.  No matter.

There must now be the strong possibility of a huge negative feedback loop for Labour.  Balls was already lining up Mili for both barrels.  Tax avoidance isn't a great platform for the Mili-family to campaign on, so that line won't serve for much longer.  The meeja have unanimously decided the Pink BatBus is hilarious.  Oh yes, the sun is shining.

Greece, Ukraine, Libya, Italy, Denmark ... that's for tomorrow.

ND       

Fracking & A Rare Example of Political Will

Fracking has the hallmarks of an issue best left until after the election, like Blair studiously did with Nuclear before 2005.  Swampy doesn't vote, so let him fester in his damp hole and get mistaken for a badger: but actual middle class people are known to take fright at the prospect of a drilling rig in their back yard.  In the likely scheme of any UK shale developments what practical difference does a year make?  I'm as big an enthusiast on shale as anyone, and a great believer in Political Will: and still my answer would be: not a jot.  The gas ain't going anywhere; and there's a good chance there may be nothing to show for any exploration conducted between now and next May.  But there could be some messy headlines.

Nonetheless, the government has got religion on this, and has been plugging on rather purposefully for a good few months.  Do they actually fancy running battles with Greens down country lanes  ? (I'm quite sure PC Plod does ...)  Is this part of the great Crosby playbook ?

For what its worth, I'd say the shale policy is being pursued fairly intelligently (everything is relative, mind) with a 50:50 chance of positive political outcome.  The most recent announcement (full steam ahead but careful of the National Parks) is sensibly cast.  There's a section of the population that likes the smack of firm government; energy security-of-supply is a well-known refuge for political scoundrels (and little Putin is certainly playing his part); and there's another part of the population that generally knuckles down to the inevitable, so long as it is mildly sugar-coated - which this one is.  Even the Guardian's critique is qualified, and resigned to the inevitable.

I can also tell you (from the front line, first hand) that the drilling companies have taken the signal and are intent on playing hardball: not Henry Ford-style, but with serious determination, based on the understanding the government has their backs.  Local councils will generally play along with a determined developer, particularly when there's that bit of sugar-coating on offer; so persistence will win out.  And the academics - who some assume are greens to a man - are in fact pragmatists to a man, always on the look-out for sponsored research opportunities.  They will largely be onside too, with a whole new industry in prospect. 

Yes, 95% go with whichever way the wind is blowing, and the government has decided to blow.  Of course, they're showing the same steely resolve with nuclear and all manner of 'renewables' lunacy too, so it may be viewed as all of a piece*.   Energy policy, misguided or otherwise, seems to have that effect on people.  You don't get forgiven for letting the lights go on the blink.

ND
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* Funnily enough, all of this - the fracking and the faffing - is undermined by falling gas prices, happening across Europe and Asia without any help from UK shale !

Equitable Life and the Coalition Pledge: Glory Be!

and cursèd be the name of Gordon Brown

How often does a government carry through a manifesto promise ?  Well hats off to the Coalition, then, because today I received my Equitable Life compo cheque !

Yes, both Tories and Lib Dems made manifesto pledges to that effect, and the Coalition Agreement duly carried it forward.  Sadly, the compo is only at the rate of 22.4 pence in the pound (of loss suffered) - and the loss itself is calculated in a rather non-transparent way.  But hey, let's not carp too much.  All opprobrium is to be directed squarely at Gordon Brown, whose complete failure to regulate properly hangs around his neck forever, and whom I shall curse to my dying day.

I haven't seen any write-up of this payout in the press - just widespread recent ads for EL pensioners to get in touch with the compo scheme - but I have to believe I'm not the only one to be getting a welcome letter in the post.  Given that compo cheques in respect of various banking sins are being credited with, inter alia, last year's record UK car sales figures, I'm guessing that many recipients will be rushing out and buying stuff, instead of *ahem* prudently topping up their pension arrangements.

So - yet another Keynsian boost to the economy !  And maybe a few extra votes, assuming Mr Crosby knows how to make a little hay out of this - which I think he does.

ND

Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum - I Detect an Australian!

So onto the box saunters Cameron and what is his headline New Year message ?  He's going to protect the state pension.  And the headlines duly follow.

What tremendous simplicity.  And eminently memorable for the section of the population that exercises its vote the most.  Not even anything as petty as a Brown-style 'dividing line' - because of course all the other party leaders immediately row in behind him, as they must.

Behind him.  That'll do.  Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum - I think we detect the clear-sighted guidance of his Australian friend and pantomime villain Mr Crosby, who is keen on ditching all policy excrescences ("scraping off the barnacles") and keeping things simple, basic.

Pic: the Beeb ?  Or Someone Else ... 

So Election Campaign 2015 starts now.  Let's hope that actually doing a few clear-sighted, basic things also features between now and then.

ND  

Footnote: the Beeb did Dave proud in its online coverage of this little set-piece, using the photo I reproduce here.  Did Crosby supply that, too ?

Shale: Another Nail in Osborne's Coffin

Balcombe Blame Rests Here

Or rather, the coffin of his reputation as a strategist.

Oh yes, it's been dead awhile, stone dead.  But by my reckoning, his screw-up on shale is almost up there with the fatal boundary-change abortion.

In both cases, Master George the master-strategist seems to have identified clearly enough the paramount significance of a particular issue.  But instead of following through, of giving it the undivided attention and planning and execution it merits (being An Issue Of Paramount Significance, yeah ?), he farts in its general direction and assumes that plaudits are in order for his spotting, and farting at, the obvious.  But a real strategist understands that strategic insight is empty without genuine, unremitting, practical application to the task of figuring out everything that follows, in grinding, boring detail - and actual implementation of the needful.  Whatever it takes.  With no loose ends.  Because, hey, it's of Paramount Significance.

We know how the boundary changes ended: so what happened with shale ?  When the initial Cuadrilla discovery was announced, we wrote here: This Is The Big One.   Others (e.g. Mr Worstall) followed our lead, and soon it was recognised by all and sundry. See, George, it is really obvious (& let me quickly add that C@W was by no means alone in trumpeting the matter).  George duly cottoned on too and started running his own energy policy - hatching tax breaks (unnecessary) and a streamlined permitting regime (stupid, at least in the way it's been done), with a bit of gratuitous green-baiting (Juvenile George's stock-in-trade).

But what else obviously follows from the obvious significance of shale ?  Why yes: every Green and Red and general unwashed malcontent and transgressionist across Europe would realise that shale gas (if actually found here) could be the death-knell of their various stone-age / statist dreams.  Accordingly, they would be out in force to try to prevent drilling, with a lot more chance of drawing the crowds than (say) the rather recondite NoDashForGas sit-in at West Burton.  Oh yes, this too was entirely obvious - we predicted it here last year - and is a major vulnerability of the whole UK shale gas prospect.

With the Battle of Balcombe rumbling on, there is no need to rehearse just how far short of a strategy we are: and I unhesitatingly blame Osborne.  There is nothing good to be had from going abut the job clumsily and pissing off conservative Middle England in the process.

Is all lost ?  Well, if this were Germany we'd be in really big trouble, because their greens (and the old superannuated Atomkraft-Nein-Danke brigade, now in well-heeled retirement with time on their hands and misty recollections of their glory-days to perpetuate) have serious stamina, as witness the very long-running Battle of Stuttgart Station.

But our homegrown greens are a little less committed.  I maintain that the UK shale programme is vulnerable to the antis, but there is certainly an optimistic scenario.  Those with long memories will recall the massive pro-coal-mining demonstrations in the early 1990's, when Michael Heseltine (sic) was at the DTI and allowing large-scale pit closures to take place.  A short moratorium, a general return to the sofa to watch whatever was the compelling soap of the day; and after a couple of months all was forgotten and the pits closed as planned.  Likewise in the first year of the NuLab government, some more pit closures were announced: cue massive popular hostility to the Dash For Gas (yes, even then - and that was technically the second D-F-G; the current one is the third).  And what did young Peter Mandelson do then ? (yep, he was at the DTI in 1997).  Why - another moratorium ! - this time on new gas-fired power plant permits.  And after the usual short interval ... well, you know the rest.

So there's at least a chance the great unwashed just pack up and go home**.  Therefore, if there is a decent strategist somewhere in Whitehall (and I very much think there is) there is at least the possibility of getting this show back on the road.  There is, after all, no great rush.

If a real strategist takes charge, there is one final optimistic precedent worth noting.  In the first Thatcher government a truly strategic attack on the NUM was being hatched under a properly thought-out, comprehensive plan (which embraced such details as building coal stocks to unprecedented levels, uprating Felixstowe for coal imports, building the A14 to get them to the Midlands by road, and installing an infrastructure for coordinating the Police nationally.  See, George, that's what a real strategy looks like.)  In 1981, before all this was complete the NUM went on strike for a pay rise.  So Thatcher ordered a tactical retreat - looked like a horrible climb-down at the time - reculer pour mieux sauter, until things were good and ready.  Well, you know the rest.

So all is not lost.  But Osborne ... his failings are inexcusable.  Is there really not a better candidate for Chancellor on the coalition benches ?  That's another job where strategy is at a premium, n'est-ce pas ?

ND

** having a few spare hours last week, I monitored the tweeting on events at Balcombe.  Somewhat to my surprise, having been at frenetic and very high-volume levels all week, it fell off dramatically after lunchtime on Friday.  Does this mean all these tossers are tweeting from work ? Watching the cricket ?

I agree with Nick

Back in October 2008 Mr drew wrote a post about the possibility of a snap election by the beleaguered Brown Government. The wheels had already come off the Labour wagon. Northern Rock had been bailed and then nationalised. There had been full blown bank panic runs. The 10p trick tax IED, set by Brown as chancellor,  had just blown up in his Prime Ministerial face. By elections in the safest seats in the land were being lost and Labour MPs were openly calling for Gordon to resign.
The Tory party was polling with a 120+ seat majority. David Cameron was so dominant at PMQs that even red top papers were suggesting he might go a bit easier on the hapless Prime Minister to avoid looking like a bully.  It looked all over for Labour two years out from an election.

Except... 

As Mr Drew noted, they were down, but not out. 
Nick had spotted changes being made by the labour party. Cherished socialist policies were being abandoned. Even some that Gordon had invested every last drop of his limited credibility in were out.

A couple of weeks ago, amidst the storm, NuLab quietly dropped SATS testing and 42-day detention.

And
 in the last three days..

- prisoners are to have an altogether nastier time
- 'an end to bogus disability claimants' (again)
- 'equal opportunities for whites'
- hate preachers are to be banned (again)
- hints on a 'cap on immigrant numbers'
- a hint that the Heathrow 3rd runway is to be abandoned


Labour were up to something.

I added a piece about how in wartime it was necessary to dispense with anything that was not essential to the operation. That a clear focus was required and a ruthlessness was required. A him or me attitude.

Why I remember these pieces from almost 5 years ago was there was a growing unease amongst the blogosphere, if not the mainstream media, that the Tory leadership had not made the case of what it was actually standing for. These two and other warnings as evidenced in the comments were some of the first stirrings that the fall of the House of Crusher might not be the forgone conclusion everyone was supposing. The advice offered to Cameron was to get his A team on the bridge and to stop talking about hoodies and huskies and proceeds of growth and focus totally on establishing what his team would do differently that would quickly get us out out of the ongoing recession and restore some sanity to the nation's finances.

It was not clear that they ever did.

Below Mr Drew supposes that, at last, David Cameron has found a decent Chief of the Imperial General Staff.

Judging by the Miliband attack on Lynton at PMQs, he probably has. 

{Miliband still has better joke writers though. - Today's the prime minister for Bensons and Hedge funds was pretty good. The C@W staff are always available Dave. Good rates.}
 

As The Political Weather Gets Hotter

In this country one doesn't always expect mid-year weather to be quite as warm as this.  Nor does one expect the main opposition party to be losing its cool mid-term to quite the extent that Labour has.  But it's there for all to see: Labour on the back foot - over its links with Unions, on its leadership, on welfare reform and yes, on the NHS.  Oh, and an interesting straw-in-the-wind poll showing the Tories significantly up

Coincidence - or Crosby ?  Well the Labour Party are calling for his dismissal on several pretexts, so they clearly fear as much.  As you know I'm inclined to optimism when it comes to the benefits of having a true strategist like that on board.  And if it's correct that shelving peripheral stuff like tobacco packaging and alcohol pricing is being done under his principle of scraping the barnacles off the boat, so much the better for serious politics.  Labour are stuck with their unattractive two-Eds leadership, the LibDems are stuck with Clegg, and Cameron polishes up better than any of them when it comes to a crunch.

It's hardly time to hang out the flags when objectively there is so much the government is getting wrong - in several cases, badly wrong.  But in purely political terms, if the remaining less-than-2-years can be conducted adroitly ...

Not forgetting that government holds most of the levers, and the key is knowing how they are used.  That's where Mandelson and Campbell were so effective; so much, much more effective than (say) George 'Strategic Genius' Osborne. Scraping the barnacles here, establishing a few dividing lines there (Trident and the LibDems, anyone ?) and the Tory ship may soon look a lot more ready for the engagements to come than was the case 6 months ago.

And making the NHS an(other) albatross around Labour's neck ... now that would be quite a trick.  One that wouldn't have sounded at all plausible until, well, until very recently indeed.

ND