Mondeo Man to rebel?

OK, perhaps my dismissal of there being many election night surprises from Labour the other day was a touch rash. But as even the Standard's article of yesterday concerning a leaked memo from Labour HQ suggests, the notion of 107 "at-risk" seats is purely there to put the frighteners on MPs in a bid to put pressure on constituency activists. The article claims London and the South East (I pity the Home Counties' journalistic descent into 'and the South East' sometimes...) represents the true electoral battleground in May:

Some in the party now fear a southern pincer movement - an ethnic and metropolitan backlash in London against the war and the Government's perceived illiberalism, combined with a suburban backlash in the Home Counties against rising taxes, wretched transport and immigration.

Well have I got news for them. A new site does declare:

Do you remember the night Michael Portillo lost his seat?

Well, yes. May 1st 1997, there was an election on. They go on:

Didn't it feel great?

I suppose, in a political anoraky way, though I was studying politics at university at the time and there was a lot of ecstacy going around in those days.

Do you want to feel that good again?

Who wouldn't, but I am pushing 30 and do have a reasonably respectable job.

Well you can.

I don't doubt that for one second but what are you selling?

A website, it seems. And they don't like Alan Milburn much, either.

Back to the matter in hand and away from such un-New Labour territory as middle class students experimenting with drugs at university, it seems that the Times today are suggesting:

GORDON BROWN is being warned that he will not be forgiven by Labour MPs if he chooses to “sulk in his tent” during an election in which the party fears that more than 100 seats are at risk.

And with that mental image...



"Labour to lose a 100 seats" - Labour Campaign HQ wants to motivate hundreds of activists more like. That 'leak' was more like a press release.