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Week on the web
Andrew Alexander
The beauty of a phantom election is that all sides can claim victory, and political spotters can speculate without ever being proved wrong.
On Thursday David Cameron marked the day Gordon Brown was supposed to call an election with a speech claiming "the tide is turning" the Tories' way.
Mike Smithson at Political Betting says in years to come "political nerds will produce lots of counter-factuals about the November 1 general election that wasn't".
Anyone who wants to imagine Nick Clegg doing an impression of Michael Portillo could try one such counter-factual, by James Cleverly.
Smithson's own theory is that had the Observer published a poll at the start of the Tory conference showing Labour with a 13 per cent lead rather than seven per cent, the momentum for an election might have proved unstoppable.
Paul Linford is among several bloggers to point out that, had we gone to the polls, at least the weather would have turned out nice.
The Tories marked the non-event by printing World War Two-style leaflets claiming 'Today has been cancelled'. A Conservative Home reader was quick to point out that it appeared to commit the party to something that isn't official policy.
Cameron's party has certainly continued to look irrepressible this week, but the Times' Peter Riddell - a wise old bird if ever there was one - thinks the Tories are in danger of becoming "cocky and overconfident". He also notes the irony of celebrating the cancellation of an event the party never wanted.
Michael White uses his excellent and prodigious blog to warn against underestimating the prime minister.
"Brown... remains a formidable politician who has the capacity to bounce back from his disastrous October. I bump into lots of Tory politicians, many of them much more experienced than young Mickey. They don't make the mistake of underestimating the man in No 10," he writes.
The Mikey in question? Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary who, in spite of a new look, is still struggling with having "a face like a badly peeled potato".
Gove, the Tories' most eloquent attack dog, gave a scornful appraisal of the Brown government on Tuesday. Ruth Kelly, rather weakly, accused him of descending to the school boy name-calling "more characteristic of his less erudite colleagues".
The Gove speech was attracting a lot of attention from the right wing blogs. The pro-Cameron Coffee House thought it was on the money, as did the Mail's blogging political editor Ben Brogan.
Brogan also hints at not a small amount of Tory hubris, revealing that an Opposition frontbencher almost invited the journalist to his first ministerial lunch.
Among Gove's critics are Hopi Sen at A Blog from the Backroom, who describes the speech as "psychological frippery" with no basis in fact.
Tara Hamilton-Miller in the New Statesman says Cameron's speech on immigration - he called for a grown-up conversation and a limit on the net figure - could only be made with the Tories riding high in the polls.
And Paul Walter is not alone in comparing Cameron with Howard, who many believe lost the 2005 election over issues like immigration. He asks: "When is a dog whistle not a dog whistle?"
The Liberal Democrat leadership contest bubbles along in the background, but with their poll rating rising this week some blogs were asking if they should bother electing a leader at all.
Anyone wondering if it was down to the Vince Cable effect needs to read this important analysis by Stumbling and Mumbling. With his lack of hair, could uncle Vince make prime minister?
The blogosphere is always only a step away from its next bout of angry introspection, and Ben Macintyre's Times column about anonymous posting may have sparked another frenzy.
Dizzy has a thoughtful response, arguing "don't feed trolls unless you want to" - that's this kind of troll.
It is traditional when talking about the state of British blogging to look at its trajectory in the US. Will Parbury outlines an intriguing theory, that "British Tories want to recreate a Conservative coalition in the mould of the one that took Bush to the second term of his presidency," on Labour Home.
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Published: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 15:46:07 GMT+00
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