Apathetic or truth-seeking?

Recent polls have Labour tightening the lead held by the conservatives. One reason is that Labour are finally engaging in a battle of image and perception rather than one of ideas. Most of the Labour cognoscenti believed, until now, that they were saddled with an un-charismatic leader (Brown) facing a telegenic, articulate foe (Cameron). Instead of engaging in a popularity contest, Labour instead embarked on a campaign based on substantive ideas. After all, with so many people struggling from economic woes, Labour's reluctance to cut government spending would seem to resonate more with the public.

The problem was that even while engaging the Tories on substance, Cameron still outshone Brown. He crafted clever catch phrases like "big society" and engaged the high priestess of Labour orthodoxy Polly Toynbee, calling it the "cause of my life" to refute her criticisms. Cameron came across as confident, willing to defend huge cuts in the face of a deepening recession. Brown came across as lukewarm, reverting time and time again to the same party line. Cameron looked like a leader and one that was prepared to bring change.

Labour has finally got its political strategy right. Instead of focusing on a substantive debate, they have begun to attack the Tories and Cameron for their class ties, their "out of touch" values with those struggling to make it. The opening salvo of this new strategy was Brown's zinger a few weeks ago at Prime Minister's Questions where he called shadow chancellor George Osborne and Cameron's marriage tax policy an idea born on the "fields of Eton."

Since then, Labour has repeatedly attacked Cameron on image, even criticizing the digital airbrushing of his face on campaign posters. The attacks have worked. Voters are starting to question Cameron and the Tories' creditability. While they are still not wild about Brown, they are starting to fear that Cameron might be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Enter Lord Ashcroft, the self-made billionaire of ADT fame, who has bankrolled the conservative party for years. Before being granted a peerage 10 years ago, Ashcroft, who derives most of his wealth from overseas businesses, promised to become a permanent UK resident and pay UK tax on his worldwide income. Except that he didn't and that new revelation has played right into Labour's strategy of painting the Tories as dishonest.

The entire campaign is fascinating to me, not only because of the characters involved but because Labour has made headway moving away from substantive issues. The crafty politicians in Brown's camp, i.e. Ed Balls, have been pressuring him to adopt this strategy for months while his more serious advisors have argued more for a substantive debate. Only with nothing to lose did Brown finally engage in a class warfare struggle. And now because of it, he might well remain Prime Minister.

The sad reality is that voters don't want to discuss policy. They don't want politicians to engage them in a serious debate. They want their leaders to imbue confidence, to wax their passions and confirm their biases. Look at the Tea Party movement in the U.S., which is supposedly predicated on cutting government spending.

When a Senator from Kentucky, Jim Bunting, took the protests and angry marches to heart and blocked the extension of unemployment benefits, the same tea party advocates became eerily silent. For some reason, cutting government deficits mean something different when it results in eliminating unemployment benefits for out of work Americans. Senator Bunting may be the only person clueless enough to take the Tea Party movement's ideas seriously enough to pull a stunt like this. The rest of the Washington establishment simply gave them lip service.

That's because the Tea Party marches weren't about government deficits. They were about a larger frustration and anger at government. Similarly, Brown's low ratings weren't about his ideas or Cameron's policy proposals. They were about people's hunger for change, something new and something that could make them feel good again in the midst of dark economic times.

Normal voters are not overly concerned about policy. Sad but true. If Brown keeps up the heat on Cameron, not for his ideas, but on his image of a middle class-IKEA kitchen, bicycle riding, next-great-British-leader, he might well become the new comeback kid.

What I'm reading:

Unlike Ashcroft, the horror of Tory cuts will stay hidden, Polly Toynbee, The Guardian.

The Tories still have one priceless asset . . ., William Rees-Mogg, Times of London.

Here's why the Tory lead is narrowing, Steve Richards, The Independent.