Is Gordon Brown at war already?

Fraser Nelson in the Spectator speculates that Gordon Brown is already plotting the timing of the next general election and will call it sooner rather than later, before the economic news becomes even more bleak. As Fraser Nelson says:

"the likelihood of a January election grows stronger. It would be an extraordinary time for an election, yet that very singularity would play to Mr Brown’s favoured theme: namely, that there is a national economic emergency. Even in the depths of winter, he could easily argue that he needed a new and explicit five-year mandate to implement his rescue plan. And most of all, it would get the electorate into the polling booths before the really bad news breaks."

In many ways the key to Gordon Brown's plans being successful is keeping "the narrative" that the economic problems are all the fault of America and greedy bankers, he will be enthusiastically aided in this by the BBC who will push this narrative even as Alistair Darling is rumoured to be

"considering changing the Bank of England’s remit, to see whether it should pay more attention to asset prices in future. Instructing the Bank to ignore the debt-fuelled asset bubble was perhaps Mr Brown’s most calamitous misjudgment, and became the foundation of what will soon be known as the Brown Bubble."

The BBC will happily portray Gordon Brown as the only possible saviour of the UK even as the facts point to the opposite.

As Fraser Nelson concludes:

"There is a reason why sterling has been the 159th worst performer in the world’s currencies in the last year, and it has nothing to do with subprime American mortgages.

The shadow chancellor was simply stating the obvious, and this is what Mr Brown is trying so desperately to hide from. His preferred narrative — that he is personally saving a strong Britain from a global ‘contagion’ — is an elaborately constructed myth that simply cannot last the course. On Monday, he will doubtless unveil a package that will be presented as a radical remedy. Yet its failure will be obvious by Easter. This is why his best chance is to hold an election in the new year, before he is found out. For the second time, the PM is in position, ready for battle. And for the second time, Mr Cameron’s mission is to convince him that the Conservatives are ready, too."