Labour hope for Australia repeat

Gordon Brown’s team has been scouring the globe for precedents for the electoral bounceback now required.

They think they’ve found one in Australia. In the 2001 General Election there, conservative (Liberal) prime minister John Howard was trying to win a third term, flat on his back at 30 per cent of the poll at the equivalent point in their electoral cycle, the autumn of 2000.

Mr Howard used the immigration issue, pretty brutally, to help to turn things around against his Labour Party opponent Kim Beazley.

Team Brown thinks it can use gravitas, economic judgement and “authenticity” instead.

John Howard eventually came back to win 37 per cent of the poll, neck and neck with Australia’s Labour Party in share of the vote, enough to win him a third term.

According to the UK electoral calculus website, a neck and neck 37 per cent contest here gets you a healthy Labour majority.

A glimmer of light for Labour strategists in these very dark days. Or, some may think, grasping at straws.