What if Brown has got it right?

This has been a funny recession so far. It has come with quite devastating speed and yet, even now, the indicators are unclear as to its effect or how many will get hurt. Our economy is structured differently from the past (even less industry to get hurt) and is based more and more on people selling services to each other.

What I have found most interesting of recent times is the apparent obsession of Labour and the media to paint the recession as ever bleaker and bleaker, even though the population seems to be determined to undermine their orthodoxy. If the January Sales have been an indication of what it is like when credit is reined in then what could it have been like if the banks had been lending properly.

Take the time to check out the BBC's 'Downturn' pages on their website. There you will find an array of 'Lord Peston of BBC' gloom with a parade of businesses issuing profit warnings, closures and administrations galore, But can you find any of the good news? Can you find the stories about John Lewis, Next or Sainsbury's? Or the dozens of other businesses I speak to who are doing well? Businesses have closed but many of them have tended to be the weak who had been struggling even before recession bit.

So let's just dream for a minute.

What gets us out of a recession is confidence. Let us just imagine that whilst there is a recession the confidence required to make people go out and buy is being shaken by the constant stream of bad media news (because only bad news is news), and the desire of the Government to spin their role in bringing us out of the downturn.
No one knows whether Brown has really done the right thing in economic terms, (although the VAT cut is clearly a failure) only history will tell us that. But what if he can give us the spin that he got it right? What if we come out of the recession as fast we went in? What then for our party and where it goes both politically and with policy?

The Brown hero
If Gordon Brown becomes the hero of the world he likes to paint himself as then how will the next election play out. The polls currently indicate that the PM is doomed, whatever the outcome. I cannot help thinking though that public opinion can change and that Brown is banking on the medicine working and his popularity rising as we come out of the recession. The Conservatives need to carefully align an argument that says that whilst coming out of the recession is good, why did we have to go through the pain. My fear would be that in this instance the 'global problem' mantra might sound persuasive.
In this scenario the party will really have to work very hard to mop up Lib Dem swing votes and hope that the new Northern Ireland accord brings a positive benefit.

The Brown villain
There is the chance that the electorate has become so highly sophisticated that Brown is a villain whatever happens. But the problem then becomes the chance that the Conservatives become complacent. It would be good to think there could be a by-election soon that will test the polls to see what the real effect has been. In the event that Brown is the villain then the focus would switch to the future of Labour and who might come after him. Would Brown do a Blair and go into the next election saying I will only stay on for X years? Would that work to get him extra time in the job he has always wanted to do?

The Brown history
Could it be that his time is just up, that history is against him? Is there a chance that whatever the outcome for the economy then Brown is finished. It would be foolish to think that this is the case and unlike Labour in 1992 the Conservative party has to recognise that it has to work harder than it would have had to a year ago to fight for every seat and every vote. To not do this would allow Labour back in and the consequences for the Conservative party would be catastrophic.

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