Going Negative

The Tories go negative:

A new nationwide Conservative poster campaign to be revealed within days will show the party adopting a more negative message... By contrast, the second wave of posters will concentrate on Mr Brown and seek to convince voters that he is personally responsible for the state of Britain’s public finances. The change in direction is being supported by two US advisers recently hired by the Tories, both veterans of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

This makes perfect sense, really - at least if the Tories want to win this election. There seems to be a taboo around the use of negative adverts, and certainly the use of the "New Labour, New Danger" poster probably cost the Tories in 1997. But this time, Labour have gone negative first. That's what this "controversy" around Ashcroft is all about. It is negative campaigning, and if the Tories don't respond in kind then they end up looking like they have no backbone, and are unable to act as an effective opposition should.

Furthermore, there is a massive open goal available to them - namely, Gordon Brown. Going negative on Gordon Brown can be done without even being too negative - to a large extent, making critical comments is simply stating facts. Pointing out Brown's failures is like shooting fish in a barrel, and since the Tories seem unable to put forward any policies, then attacking Brown really is their best bet.

Hell, you could almost argue that a negative election campaign against Brown is positive, if only because it could have such a positive outcome - namely, the removal of Gordon Brown from Downing Street.