Non-Election Day
Had things worked out differently today would have been election day. What would have happened? Polls at the time of the non-election announcement showed the Conservative's advancing, and polls in recent days have shown them in the lead, albeit, not by enough to get an overall majority. If ICM's poll published yesterday had been repeated at a general election today it would have left Labour 26 seats short of a majority and the Liberal Democrats as power brokers.
So would we have been in for a long weekend as the parties bartered over coalition deals or pacts? Probably not actually, I suspect an actual election today would have worked out differently. Firstly the Liberal Democrats would obviously not have got rid of their leader - that doesn't actually seem to have damaged their support, in fact it's gone up without him, but I suspect if there had been an election it would have gone up anyway from the increased puiblicity they'd have been entitled too.
More importantly looking at the current polls I suspect Labour would have been ahead in an election today. The polls straight after the Conservative party conference when Gordon Brown decided not to have an election were showing a temporary Conservative boost from a successful party conference. In this alternate universe they would probably have subsided. In the polls we've seen lately Gordon Brown's approval ratings have plummeted and pollsters are finding that he is suddenly seen as ineffective and indecisive, his image as being more of a heavyweight than David Cameron shattered. Without the humiliation of the non-election announcement I expect that change in perceptions of Brown would not have happened or, at least, wouldn't have happened to such an extent. Labour's poll rating would still have been sustained by a new Prime Minister riding high on his honeymoon, with a reputation for strength and decisiveness.
Of course, it's a hypothetical question now. There is no election. It will probably be years until we know whether the date Gordon Brown does end calling the election on is more or less fortuitous then November 1st 2007 would have been.
