While I am sure that Iain is right that there were special events and specific actions on the ground in Britain that have caused these political changes of fortune, I think this is a good cue to make a really basic point about politics. People get bored, politicians get tired. The recent elections in Australia launched a whole round of cackling commentary and loaded coverage about how John Howard’s defeat down under was a blow to Bush (of course, the election of pro-American candidates in France and Germany didn’t get quite the same sort of spin, unsurprisingly). Maybe at the margins, there’s some truth to the Bush referendum spin. But Howard and his party had been in power for 11 years and sometimes voters just look for an excuse to change the faces on the news. And after a while political parties, and the intellectual movements behind them, simply run out of steam. I’m sure Cameron’s being cagey but, Labor’s run things for a long time and it’s about time for them to go.