2007 General Election, 1st November

If Gordon Brown had not been scared of the polls in the marginals wanted time to explain his vision, today would have been a General Election. It would have been a fascinating election campaign, instead we have had a scintillating month in which the trend in politics has turned upside down.

We would have seen whether the upswing in support for the Tories after their conference would have held during a full Labour onslaught. We would have witnessed some hastily put together manifestos, maybe we could then have seen GB's vision. Ming would still be leader of the Lib Dems, would they have made an advance from 11% in the polls? The bad news about immigration workforce figures would not have been released. Gordon Brown would have had to face difficult questioning from the Paxmans and Humphreys, and some Question Time specials - something which he shies away from.

Instead, we've had a run of bad PMQ performances from GB, U-turn after U-turn on policies, some impressive speeches from both leaders (Security for Brown, Immigration and Foreign Policy for Cameron) and the knifing of Sir Menzies.

Tomorrow Iain Dale on his blog will be running a counter-factual (a what if) on the election that never was. Here's my counter-factual.

1) Both parties would have started the campaign on roughly equal polling.
2) Labour would have then pulled into a two or three point lead after the publication of their manifesto.
3) There would be some sniping from the sides of the Tory Party, which would have been brushed off by DC.
4) The Tories would pull level after their manifesto is published.
5) The Tories would announce some tax cuts, leading to accusations of cuts to public services by Labour.
6) The EU constitution reform treaty would be a major issue, after GB had threatened to veto it.
7) GB would do badly on a Question Time Special, DC would do well.
8) Sir Ming Campbell would be competent if uninspiring.
9) Going into the last day, the Tories would pull ahead by 1%.

After the results of the GE would be Labour 37%, Conservatives 40% and Liberal Democrats 15%. Leading Labour to be short of a majority by 5 seats.

A Labour/LibDem coalition would last for two years until a security issue split them apart. The 2009 election would be convincingly won by the Tories.

Interesting how things might have turned out.

Squiffy.