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Gordon Brown will certainly be a diminished figure if he doesn’t go to the country now.
He’ll look weak and indecisive after all this speculation.
He’ll also look very political. He could have easily killed the speculation and focused the nation’s minds on his exciting ideas for changing the country (like, um, Citizen’s Juries).
1.30pm: The reason for it (probably) not being 25/10 – according to The Spectator’s James Forsyth – is that Gordon Brown does not want to look like he’s undermining the Tory Conference and it’s half-term week. The trouble with the following week is that the clocks will have changed. I still think an election is likely but Nick Robinson’s story has made me doubt a little bit…
1.45pm: Stephan Shakespeare suggests to me that another reason for 1st November is that people will have just been paid.