Labour could still win the next General Election. Despite poll woes, party troubles and policy mistakes, a Tory Government is no forgone conclusion. Though many are acting as if failure is inevitable, it is still possible for Labour to snatch victory from the (silver-spooned) jaws of defeat. Putting politics aside for the time being, statistics alone point to a fourth term.

Political geography favours Gordon Brown. If both major parties were to perform equally well at the election, Labour would still wins 80 more seats than the Tories. This means that David Cameron would have to win another two million votes to earn the same number of seats. To break even, the Tories require a 6% lead, and an even bigger 10% per cent to earn an overall working majority. This seems like a walkover considering the current double figure lead the Conservatives have at the moment, until you learn the history lesson that every government from the mid-50s to mid-90s that suffered difficulties half-way through the term enjoyed a significant poll recovery. It is highly likely that the Government will close the gap to avoid a wipeout, and there is enough time to tighten the race and prevent a 10-point lead, and perhaps catch-up enough to rob Cameron of the 6% benchmark

Although the label has been applied in many cases, Gordon Brown is not John Major. In the Crewe and Nantwich byelection, Labour lost 40% of its vote. Combined with the same result in Glasgow East, this seems devastating, and foreboding of things to come. That is, until it is compared to the Dudley West byelection in 1994, where the Conservative vote collapsed by a spectacular 80%.

Labour woes are fundamentally different, as Gordon Brown has been a fashionable scapegoat over the past year. The YouGov polling boss, Peter Kellner, presents research that shows that having dealt with floods and other horsemen (whose horses had foot-and-mouth or bluetongue), voters do not blame Brown for obviously international issues like rising food and fuel prices, but still want help from the government. So while the credit crunch is global, current economic problems contrast hugely with Black Wednesday, which was a fully-patented Tory disaster. It marked the beginning of the end for John Major, but Gordon Brown is in a very different position.

The double-figure Tory poll lead is incredibly overrated. All the hype about a landslide of Blairesque proportions is ridiculous as in 1995 and 1996 (the same sort of mid-term time scale befroe the election) Tony Blair earned extraordinary approval ratings which hit 70%. Factor in Cameron’s ratings, which occaisionaly stuggle 50%, and the scale of defeat fizzles out. It seems that while the Leader of the Opposition appears likeable, compassionate and competent, he is exposed as lightweight, shallow and very out-of-touch.

As Cameron is a poor impression of Tony Blair, he cannot win an election by himself. The Old School Tories of yesterdecade still frighten voters who can remember them (as a generation have grown up under Labour, which may explain why Brown’s history lessons of “15% interest rates” and “3 million unemployed” fail to resonate with everyone). Nevertheless, the Tory Party still appears unchanged and Tories still appear as untrustworthy crypto-thatcherites. Unfortunately for Cameron, he cannot even command a successful gagging order on his team, as Micheal Gove released plans to privatise education and the farcical David Davis byelection.

Essentially, the facts point to Brown winning, barely, though probably losing his majority. In the event of a hung parliament it is probably that Labour would remain the biggest party, but what would happen then is uncertain. Lib Dem Nick Clegg, a David Cameron impersonator by profession, has taken the Liberal Democrats to the right, and is likely to act as a Tory puppet. It all depends on Brown re-establishing Labour as the party of fairness on the way to economic recovery

Having been Chancellor for 10 years it seems logical that Gordon Brown is the best man to navigate Britain through turbulent financial waters, but even with the wind in his sails, the captain may well go down with the ship.