A strange turn of events

Labour's rise in the polls has been built largely on a simple trick. Mandelson and Brown simply do not acknowledge any defeats or blows made against them. It would be very easy for an intelligent man to agonise about having once denied the need for cuts and (shortly after) presented himself as a man who could be trusted to cut public spending. Similarly, we would probably worry about presenting ourselves as having succeeded in controlling immigration, when it has merely fallen a little from record heights achieved on our watch.

But why worry if you can simply ignore those problems. Why be concerned if you can flatly deny them when the heat is on, and sneak out an apology later. Do not admit a failing when being cross-examined in Chilcott enquiry. Do not admit in PM's questions that the whole G20 was out of recession first. You mislead the enquiry, and put up a good show when it matters most. And you pretend (to cheers) that Spain is a G20 member.

Like Eddie Murphy in the sketch, and Shaggy is in his song, if you simply ignore your fault regardless of all the evidence, you may just get away with it. Hence, the taunts of Cameron as to Brown's boast of "no more boom and bust", does not ruffle Brown - and Cameron looks like a name caller.

At least that, perhaps, is what you see if you watch too closely. The audience on last night's Question Time seemed almost at times to queue up to call Brown a liar. Maybe the public do not take enough interest to end up giving high marks for artistic impressions to politicians, even when they are spinning tall tales. Like RicRoc's rebuke to Shaggy: but they caught us on camera saying we'd solved boom and bust, that we would lead the world out of recession, that there would be no cuts, etc.

So, maybe Cameron should not worry too much that he seems to be bashing his head against a brick wall trying to get Brown to admit failure.

His worry should instead be to present a positive case, and let the public take care of Brown's nonsense. We have seen with the National Insurance issue that a positive policy can cause havoc to Labour. Labour have committed themselves to outright denunciation of everything about Tory economic policy. They could not cope with the idea of businessmen supporting the opposition. So, they over-reacted and fell into the trap that they have laid for Cameron.

It is obvious that Labour should have respectably disagreed. They should have wheeled out those who back their approach. Then repeat a lot of half-truths and untruths about how the Conservatives have got everything wrong from Northern Rock onwards - Newsnight exploded this, but it still makes a good line. Instead, they ranted and raged. Labour does not really do criticism well.

Will it matter? I think, yes. The polls may go up and down in the next month. But Labour need the aura of being a saffe pair of hands, and they need the Tories to have an aura of danger and incompetence. They need those impressions to be whirling around the heads of undecided voters come 6 May. The sight of businessmen queuing up to endorse supposed "Tory incompetence" was actually good, doubtless helped. But it helped that Labour made it a much bigger story with their hysteria.