I love that Alastair Campbell has a blog. I know any really powerful insights he might have on how Labour can better their prospects will be on private notes to Downing Street rather than the blog but it’s still fascinating to get his take on things as the election looms.

Alastair has a theme he’s returned to several times over the last few months and while this does his blogging a tremendous disservice I’ll paraphrase it as follows:

1. The PM clearly doesn’t have the presentational panache of Tony Blair or his main opponent David Cameron. That’s an unfortunate truth - nothing more, nothing less. It shouldn’t dominate the debate around how Labour approaches the election and it’s certainly not an insurmountable obstacle to re-election. Changing leaders now would be a stupid mistake.
2. The likely context for the general election is not favourable for Labour – at best we’ll be only just out of recession, unemployment will still be high, cuts in public spending of one shape or another, the expenses scandal will still be around and two unpopular wars claiming the lives of British soldiers abroad.
3. To that you can add a media environment deeply hostile to Labour and relatively timid in terms holding the Conservatives to account (I’m aware that last part can be squabbled over but I think it’s broadly fair.)
4. Despite all of this the Tories polling lead over Labour isn’t as high or consistent as the one Tony Blair enjoyed in 95-97. He also cites reliable polling evidence that public faith in what you might call ‘new Conservatism’ is luke warm at best and that considerable scepticism remains that Cameron has really changed his party. Campbell argues that the pre-1997 Labour party was far more united and comfortable with its rebrand than the Tories are and consequently Cameron would run into problems pretty soon if he was elected.
5. Taken in the round though Campbell exhorts Labour supporters to ditch the fatalism, recognise his more subtle but accurate reflection of the state of play and get out their and make their case and fight for every vote. The fight back should include increased focus on their record, long-term and more recently through the crash, as well as an aggressive attack of this credibility issue for the Tories, why they haven’t ‘changed’ the way Labour did and why their prescriptions for the crash would’ve made things worse.

It’s a succinct and pretty accurate summary of just where we are and demonstration – were it needed – of exactly why Campbell used to do this for a living.

Still, presumptuous though it might be for little old me to try and add to it let me add a few thoughts that don’t fundamentally change his advice to Labour activists but still might be of interest in general.

Firstly it won’t necessarily worry Cameron’s people that the polling patterns don’t mirror those pre-1997. They’d be happier if they did of course and Campbell’s right to flag it as an opportunity for Labour but there isn’t necessarily any broader significance to it. I’m no psephologist but I’m sure the near term polling for every election since universal franchise is quite different for a variety of reasons – in terms of a ‘pep talk’ for Labour Campbell’s absolutely right to raise it but it needn’t be a major concern for the Tories at the moment.

My second observation relates to the premise that the public remain sceptical about Cameron’s rebranded Tories and the likely tensions over Europe or social policy once a Tory government with a healthy majority is in place. I think he’s broadly right but again I’m not sure this will necessarily concern the Tories or that Campbell is reading the public mood accurately. If the wider public believe a less reconstructed, Europhobic slash-and-burn Tory party is just below the surface but are still prepared to vote for them then future Tory success may not be predicated solely on that rebrand exercise. You could make a case that the coherence of that rebrand – and the degree to which the public bought it - was central to Labour’s electoral success since the late 90’s. That the Tories seem on the verge of healthy majority without anything like the same coherence or internal buy-in might actually prove useful for Cameron as PM.