The Tories have called a press conference to warn against a hung parliament, distributing leaflets showing a picture of Gordon Brown waving outside Downing Street, with the message “This is what a hung parliament looks like”.
As we have been saying on this blog, there is something strange about the Tories in effect focusing on the vagaries of a system that only they back: first-past-the-post.
The Tory shadow chancellor, George Osborne, has just unveiled a cynical film that portrays a “hung parliament party”, offering nothing but behind-closed-doors deals and “killing the economy”. The Tories are also reiterating their highly contestable claim that a hung parliament will result in economic meltdown — a claim that many independent financial experts dispute.
All good political knockabout. But, as Labour strategists are pointing out today, the Tory message also marks something wider: the first time the Conservatives are admitting publicly that they are not poised for the landslide victory they and many of their media supporters predicted not so long ago.
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