McBride dropped and Labour recover

Previously on this blog I covered the view among some journalists and Labour insiders that Gordon Browns PR man Damian McBride was partly to blame for Labours poor poll performance. It would be difficult not to have noticed that over recent months the Labour party have experienced a phoenix-esque recovery, particularly in the opinion polls (now just 4% off the Tory's). Interestingly enough the first green shoots of this recovery seem to have been spotted in the days and weeks following McBride's rather bizarre removal.

Perhaps this Labour recovery was caused by substance and good performance at Westminster but probably not, in my opinion there have been more gaffes in the recent period of Browns premiership than previously. In terms of policy although they have tried to re-package some of the old and tired ideas from the Blair era they have had little success.

Danny Alexander may have been incorrect then when he said the "resurrection" of Mandelson would not breath life into Browns "zombie" government but this is probably not the case as the British public do not seem to share much love for that particular arch-Blairite. I suppose it could have been Gordon's world saving economic actions.

None of those potential explanations seem plausible, the truth of the matter seems to be that spin is so integral to the New Labour project that they can not afford to get it minutely wrong. Labour are no longer a party of substance but a party of spin.