Tory Bear pointed his twitter followers in the direction of this propaganda piece in the New Statesman that claims, without verification or corroboration that private polling inside Number 10 shows Labour will overtake the Conservatives in the polls by the end of the year. Cue much hilarity and mocking.

“Neil Kinnock wrote the first version of  Windows and sold it to Microsoft to raise the money for their 1992 General Election campaign!”

But, let’s put the ‘outrageous whoppers’ meme aside. The New Statesman piece is more appropriate material for Valentines day than a hung-over Monday. It features a photograph of Gordon showing a bit of teeth, and features the decidedly on-message, head-office approved language of fighting. The author seems practically giddy with excitement. Labour! 4th Term! Win! Yes!

It all adds up: The fight-back has begun! Of course, cynics might point out that this is the same fight-back they’ve been trying to start since “Barnacle Brown” decided not to hold a General Election, and that the changes in the polling might have more to do with the the Tories being annoyingly certain about their impending victory in the media.

However – big however – as delusional as the New Statesman piece might be the simple fact remains that Labour can win the next general election. It’s possible.

As Tory Bear’s chums pile into the comments thread, they don’t realise that they’re actually helping Labour. The more attention they draw to it, the worse it’ll get. Assuming that Labour winning is impossible, that victory for the Tories is a dead certainty? That, above all else, is Labour’s one real chance of winning.

The biggest problem facing opponents of Labour remains 1001 things to criticise them for and a general inability to stick to one specific area and hammer it to death, and a general reluctance for anyone to spell out specifically what the alternatives might be. Too much public spending? Well the solution is mutter mutter mutter. Too much CCTV and control freakery? The solution is obviously mumble thingy wotsit, isn’t it? Taxes are too high? Well, obviously we need to mutter, mumble mumble waffle and blah.

Wait, what were those solutions again? Not one of the naughty, forbidden solutions that don’t involve more public spending, more regulation, more centralisation, more crimes, more punishments, more interference in people’s private lives and choices?

The response usually comes, “Well, let’s be clear about what we’re saying here: Mumble mumble mumble.”

If the campaign is going to be about pure personality and style over real policy, and if real policy debate is reduced to ‘we’re going to introduce the same policy but on a slightly different timescale with slightly different amounts of money with slightly different numbers of public sector workers” then you’d better have one seriously charming personality and be very stylish indeed.

So this General Election, rather than being a foregone conclusion, could well be building up into what counts as the mother of all fuck-ups for the Conservatives. Will they be able to reign in the triumphalism in time? Is it even possible to rein in the triumphalism of the Tory blogosphere?

So sorry, Tory Bear. I’m going to do you a favour and not join in the ‘lynch the New Statesman for being thick’ gang. I mean, they are thick and their post is pathetic, but that doesn’t mean Labour can’t beat you.