Rope-a-dope

Both were ageing bruisers facing impossible odds. Both were pitted against younger men widely expected to obliterate them. Both were pulverised in the early stages of the contest,before their adversaries8217; stamina seemed to wane

All right,on the face of it leaden Gordon Brown may not have much in common with fleet Muhammad Ali. But it has begun to seem possible that Mr Brown might just stage a recovery as unlikely as Mr Ali8217;s in the famous 8220;rumble in the jungle8221; in Kinshasa. In 1974 Mr Ali was pounded by the fearsome George Foreman,but rallied to knock him out. Is it conceivable that in 2010 Mr Brown might bounce off the ropes to deny David Cameron his victory or even,amazing as it sounds,win himself?

Until very recently,that would have sounded preposterous; the question for the impending general election was how badly Labour would lose,not whether. Yet now the polls imply that the Tory lead,for a long time resplendent in double figures,has shrunk,in one survey to as little as two points. Polls come and go,as politicians like to say,but the two big parties seem to be trading fairly consistently at around six points apart. Because of the vagaries of Britain8217;s electoral system,if replicated at the election those numbers could well result in a hung parliament,ie,one in which no party has an absolute majority. If Labour were to pick up another point or two,it might even emerge with the most seats in the House of Commons.

Just as worryingly for the Tories,like Mr Foreman they sometimes seem to be all punched out. Biff! Society is broken! Wham! So is the economy. Wallop! The deficit threatens Britain8217;s credit rating and even some Tories add a full-blown Greek-style fiscal crisis. Kerpow! We will fix it,they say,by inaugurating a new age of austerity in taxes and spending. Crunch! Mr Brown is a useless and irresponsible prime minister. There is nothing much left to add to this brutal armoury of arguments.

Worse,this slugfest has bloodied the slugger. All the talk of spending cuts,for example,seems to have reawakened atavistic fears about Tory heartlessness. It anyway sits uncomfortably with some of Mr Cameron8217;s other pledges,such as protecting the NHS. He is trying both to float like Tony Blair in 1997 and sting like Margaret Thatcher in 1979. In the circumstances,that dual approach may be necessary. But it looks clumsy and unfocused.

Meanwhile,there is a risk that the onslaught on Mr Brown inspires a kind of sympathy with the prime minister. Just as the crowd in Kinshasa urged the slighter man on with the cry 8220;Ali,kill him!8221; well,maybe not exactly like that,some British voters may now be rallying to the underdog. The bullying allegations levelled against Mr Brown by Andrew Rawnsley,seem to have helped more than hindered him,rather like the intemperate criticism made by the Sun last year of Mr Brown8217;s mis-spelled letter to the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan.

Still more riskily,the Tories have exposed themselves to counter-attacks needlessly,some shadow ministers now say. Since January they have published various chunks of a draft manifesto. This process might have been a good idea helping to rebut the charge that the party had few policies if it hadn8217;t been for the backtracking and arithmetical embarrassments it has entailed. As one Labour figure puts it,the Cameroons may have read the New Labour book on winning elections,but they didn8217;t finish it; if they had,they wouldn8217;t have left themselves so vulnerable.

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And Labour has indeed climbed off the canvas to land some punches of its own. This is precisely the fight it was hoping for in which it runs more as an opposition than an incumbent,lambasting the Tories rather than defending the government8217;s somewhat awkward record. In peacetime senior Labour politicians8217; addiction to Tory-bashing comes across as boring and irrelevant; not so in a campaign. In Lord Mandelson,Ed Balls,Mr Brown and others,Labour has some of the toughest campaigners in the business. Their team has conjured up a couple of decent slogans; the Tories are still groping for theirs. They have pulled back in some Labour voters who were flirting with smaller parties.

8220;When we get knocked down,8221; Mr Cameron said of Britain on February 28th,8221;we don8217;t roll over and die,we get up and fight.8221; Perhaps surprisingly,that seems to be true of Labour,too.

What might have been

There is of course,a big difference between Mr Ali8217;s strategy he called it 8220;rope-a-dope8221; and Mr Brown8217;s pastiche. Mr Ali let himself be hit. Mr Brown didn8217;t mean to be struck by repeated bids to oust him,open warfare in the cabinet and the sort of economic bust he claimed to have abolished. Not to mention the lesser cock-ups that have blighted his premiership,from bottled elections to YouTube fiascos to the Lockerbie bomber8217;s release.

That history of haymakers,many self-inflicted,still makes it hard to believe the Tories won8217;t at least emerge from the election as the biggest party,probably with a majority. Conservative optimists hint that the national polls conceal better Tory numbers in key marginal constituencies. They point out that,so far as most voters are concerned,the fight has scarcely started. And they observe that,while Mr Brown8217;s own ratings have risen a bit,he remains deeply unpopular,and a drag on his party8217;s prospects.

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So,in a way,the most painful thing about the narrowing polls could be their implication for what might have been painful for Labour that is,rather than the Tories. One big reason Mr Brown has survived in his job is that some Labour MPs thought their cause was lost whoever was in charge. The dangerous ones were the brawlers who thought they could still make a fist of it. Now the weaknesses of the Tories8217; campaign,and the softness of their lead,suggest the brawlers were right. This one8217;s gotta hurt: imagine if Labour had sent someone else into the ring.

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