An early election? Not on Brown's watch

Peter Riddell explains clearly this morning why Gordon Brown is likely to resist the temptations of an early election. He doesn't mention cash constraints, and he's right not to. If Mr Brown needs the cash, it will be there.  And, in any case, the role of cash in election campaigns is greatly over stated - this is not America.

There is a further reason why I think Peter is right. It is provided by Alastair Campbell in his diaries. Twice Campbell writes about Brown's preferred method of fighting elections. He repeatedly urges the Blair team to decide where they want to be, politically, when an election is called and then work backwards, putting in place the changes necessary.

This doesn't, of course, entirely rule out an early election. But it confirms that Brown is a planner and that a dash for the polls is not really in his nature.

None of this means that going for broke in the Autumn is a bad idea, of course.

Politicians hate taking a risk, assuming that if they wait things will get better. John Major's team felt that waiting was best, since we would lose if we went early. In retrospect, it is obvious that the longer we waited the worse things got.

I think you would have to be a very optimistic Labour supporter to believe that you will ever be able to go to the polls certain of keeping a majority. If I were Brown, I would conclude that the risk now was less than risk of holding on.

But I'm not Brown.