ANALYSIS: Mid-term reverse heightens gloom for Gordon Brown

May 23, 2008, 11:29 GMT

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is pictured after meeting the Dalai Lama at Lambeth Palace in London, Britain on 23 May 2008. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown suffered another severe blow to his authority Friday as the Labour Party saw the Conservative Party seize a seat it has held for two decades in a by-election. EPA/CARL DE SOUZA / POOL

London - It's a place known best to travellers changing trains on north-bound journeys, but the Crewe and Nantwich by- election could make history for marking a radical change in the political weather in Britain, analysts believe.

The historic and overwhelming win for the opposition Conservatives in the pleasant Cheshire constituency in north-west Britain has shocked Labour, and is, according to analysts, further evidence that the political middle ground in Britain is shifting in a major way.

Just like former Prime Minister Tony Blair succeeded in 1997 to win over the voters of 'middle Britain' conquered 18 years earlier by Margaret Thatcher in her own brand of a 'Conservative revolution,' the Crewe and Nantwich poll will come to be seen as a turning point in Britain's political landscape, analysts predict.

It follows similar reverses for Labour in local elections and the London Mayoral elections on May 1, and comes less than a year after Brown took over as Prime Minister.

While many may have forgotten that Blair, too, had many reverses during his 10 years in power - especially over Iraq - which finally forced him to bring forward the date of his departure from Downing Street, the recent Labour defeats are different, analysts say.

'People are deserting Labour to go straight to the Conservatives, this is new,' said Peter Kellner, head of the polling research institute YouGov. The last time this happened was when Thatcher came to power.

Senior Labour figures, meanwhile, are eager to attribute the loss of Crewe and Nantwich to 'mid-term blues' and the current global economic turmoil that has brought steep rises in the cost of food and fuel and a hostile mortgage and credit environment.

Brown, who has had the political misfortune of taking over the helm just as the end of 10 years of uninterrupted economic growth was in sight, insists that the recent reverses are 'not personal.'

'People want us to address the economic challenges we are facing, and I believe I can do so,' Brown said Friday.

Some political commentators, however, who like to recall that Brown became Labour leader - and prime minister - without a contest last June, say openly that he is the problem.

'Never in the past has this been so much about one man, about trust in one man,' the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson said.

However, Kellner disagrees. There was no polling evidence to suggest, he said, that Labour would fare better under a new leader. Rather, this was a change in the political tide that had been turning against Labour for some months.

The big question is now how Brown will react to voters' concerns and to simmering unrest in his own party. The next general election is due, at the latest, In May, 2010.

Some Labour members of parliament, commentators believe, will probably call for Brown's head in public, but most would realize that a leadership contest at this stage would be divisive and damaging.

'A putsch is unlikely,' said one analyst Friday. However, if Brown failed to stage a 'major recovery' in his fortunes before the autumn party conference, 'a way will be found to remove him.'