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The Guardian asked me to write a commentary for Comment is Free about the prospects for a snap election.
I am sure that is (still) froth and nonsense.
But I also look at how the political dividing lines are now taking shape after the Tory u-turn on spending and taxation.
The central strategic message of Cameron's leadership has been to tell his party that it was futile to refight the battles lost over tax and spend in 2001 and 2005. That was his clause four moment. And now, Cameron has changed his mind. So the most telling moment at Cameron's press conference on Tuesday came when the Tory leader was challenged to identify any time in the last three years when he has advocated spending restraint. Cameron's response was to reclaim his personal authorship of the party's 2005 general election manifesto for Michael Howard, usually an embarrassment for a leader who wants to stand only for change.
...
Labour's strategic decision is about whether running on experience is enough. It isn't. The party needs to contest the argument about change – to set out that there are two different approaches to the role of government, to the political response to an economic downturn and the broader politics of fairness and opportunity.
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