Monday 13 April 2009

"SmearGate" Regret - Cost To Brown

Brown has written letters of "regret" to David Cameron and the other Conservative MPs involved in "SmearGate". He of course isn't capable of using the word sorry in any capacity. I don't even think if he tripped and fell onto 'the red button' killing millions he would use the word sorry - "It's regretful this happened" - will be the comment.

There's been much speculation with regard to what "SmearGate" will cost Brown. Looking around the main news sites this story has lost it's traction with the public, only on the Guardian site is it in the top3 most read. It is obviously still holding it's own with political sites and blogs.

For this story alone to have lasting damage it needs to strike a cord with the public at large, not just people who are interested in politics. The details surrounding this story are very political, more so than most people would be interested by. Combined with no tax payers money being lost yet, there isn't really anything to get the burning torches and pitch forks out for.

The Labour party supporters won't be happy with the Tory "nasty" Party parallels it creates. Will it be enough to stop them voting? I'm not so sure, there are still 30% willing to vote Labour after all that has happened so far.

In essence the damage from this will be political, not so much voter based. For the public, Brown burying his head in the sand just reinforced what people have come to expect, Labour voters stand to be the disappointed ones. The main problem it presents though is limiting Labours ability to attack the Tories. Brown can hardly point the finger and call them the "nasty party", while Cameron maintains the moral high ground.



No comments:

Post a Comment