My guess: Sunak will wait until 2025 for the election – politicalbetting.com
My guess: Sunak will wait until 2025 for the election – politicalbetting.com
Given the way the polls are going it is hard to see any sort of recovery in the months before the general election. The public appears to have made up its mind about Sunak and his party and there are very few positive signs for the Tories.
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The one caveat is that although Boris favoured winter elections (as Labour voters were less likely to turn out in bad weather) the conventional Tory wisdom has favoured spring or summer. Of course, all this might be a proxy for whatever Lynton Crosby and his acolytes think, but the point is that Rishi might have a view.
Not to mention the activists, who have little intention of ruining their own Christmas, nor that of their constituents by banging on doors.
October ‘24 for me. Before the clocks go back.
Whether that's correct I'm not certain - but if it is and Sunak sticks to the convention of a Thursday it would mean Thursday 23 January 2025.
Assuming little significant campaigning over Christmas and New Year that would mean an intensive three week campaign starting on 2 January 2025 - I guess that is just about plausible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
Then again bf only has "2023" (18.5) and "2024 or later" (1.04).
Where is the monthly market?
On the other hand, if he has 'given up', resigned himself to defeat, that says he goes at the point he's had enough of the charade. Avoiding the LE 24 fallout, which looks like it will be a terrible election round defending the 2021 high point by hiding it under a GE is also a species of avoidance decision you could see Sunak making.
What I don't expect is boldness, any decision will be defensive.
"One Ukrainian soldier had six extensively drug-resistant bacterial infections"
https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/07/ukraine-war-spurs-horrifying-rise-in-extensively-drug-resistant-bacteria/
It's quite hilarious.
Parliament has to be dissolved no later than 17th December next year, and the final date would have to be 28th January '25. Which means a GE campaign starting the week leading up to Christmas. As @Sandpit points out, January is a month notorious for lack of money, and most people won't have been paid by the 28th which is the last date. It's also for many people the most depressing month of the year.
So, I'm sorry to disappoint, but there won't be a January election, unless Sunak is a Labour plant and wishes to annihilate the Conservative Party.
The election will either be May/June or October. So it's either 10 months or 15 months away. My money would be on October 2024.
No amount of Conservative wishful thinking will stave this off beyond that.
Sunak wants to wait as long as possible, just in case something turns up. But on the other hand, waiting until January 2024 (a) looks desperate (which it is), and (b) means that people will be feeling post-Christmas poor.
Personally, I think OGH is onto something here. The temptation to wait another month just in case pictures of Sunak and Savile enjoying tea together shows up will be a very strong one.
I doubt Sunak is much bothered what happens to the Conservative Party and there is little reason to go to the country before he has to other than to save a few seats.
Certainly worth a punt if one is available.
Apart from being up against an unelectable anti-semitic trotskyite, the entire raison d'etre of that election was Get Brexit Done.
It's either May/June (less likely) or October.
Human beings are programmed to delay based on nothing more than hope. And - from Sunak's point of view - there might only be a 1% chance that something turns up, but what's the downside of waiting in case it does? Sure a few more seats are likely lost; but many MPs will be losing their jobs anyway, and would appreciate a few more months in the House.
Mr Micawber is best left within the pages of fiction.
There's no persuasive evidence that any month is better or worse than any other for a particular governing party's support.
So very late 2024 or January 2025 would be my guess.
And one thing we should get over is the idiotic habit of holding elections on a Thursday (apparently because people did that in the 19th century or something).
I think he will go for October 2024, but not for that reason. Put simply, it’s the last practical date which wouldn’t totally piss off his few remaining activists.
Inertia is a powerful drug and for it to be January 2025 he just needs to do nothing and it happens automatically. I think it's improbable, but definitely wouldn't rule it out.
Maybe a 30% chance.
F1: surprised to see Ricciardo back. He's taken de Vries' seat.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.breaking-ricciardo-to-replace-de-vries-at-alphatauri-from-the-hungarian.2yhnzxE6XpSUZwzHfr9rXp.html
Weekend elections are much more likely to occur while people are away from home.
Another two years might be handy.
But twice as likely, or ten times, or twenty ?
So my guess is October 14th 2024 (2 years + 4 days as PM) - not quite the full 5 years so doesn’t seem completely desperate and maximises the time he is PM to 2 years which looks respectable.
(We were probably only £5000 worse off before Kwarteng's absurd budget.)
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jul/12/janine-wiedel-images-of-flaming-1970s-industrial-britain
And a couple of comments caught my eye:
"My father was a die caster at the Birmid in Smethwick and I remember the burn holes in his trousers and shirts from the molten metal.
My nan and my mum both worked at Bullpitts round the corner from the jewellery quarter making Swan kettles, saucepans teapots etc. [...] My mum would spend lots of time taking the swarf out of her hands and fingers each evening.
A brass part on my nan's machine had to be replaced, they presented it to her as she had over many years left imprints in the brass of her grip on it. My brother still has this part."
and
"As for drinking at work, I worked in a foundry. As the youngest on the shop floor I would be sent to the nearest pub with two steel buckets to fill up with mild beer. The gaffers didn't mind because we all only drank mild (a less potent brew) and we soon sweated it out. Thinking back, the conditions were atrocious.....but the camaraderie and the banter was second to none. We thought it a triumph when showers were fitted in the changing room. We always let the lads who had lost fingers or had been badly burned go first in the showers. Etiquette among men considered subhuman by the office staff."
Edit: albeit contributing to the latter somewhat.
In WWI and WWII a series of Acts extending Parliament were passed.
And even if there were, it wouldn't happen.
In the case of extreme national emergency (not sure what would be extreme enough, but it would have to be something in the order of a nuclear attack), there'd be a national coalition government, and a Parliamentary vote to postpone the election.
Jan 2024 would be more like 2000/1.
In fact, what's the counter? When did a PM near certain of losing go to the country any earlier than they absolutely had to?
I suspect that the answer is that there's no good date. Go now, and the Conservatives bake in a terrible defeat. Wait, and the newsflow incoming probably makes that defeat worse. There's a chance that something truly brilliant turns up, but the average expectation has to be things continuing to drift down.
I would guess therefore the answer is Balfour in 1905, although technically it was Campbell-Bannerman who called the election as the new PM.
Our little town has a lot of names based on 'Monkfield' in it, including an artery road, a primary school, a doctor's surgery, woodland etc. This was based on a 'Monkfield Farm' which preexisted the development; I think the original farmhouse is now the dentists.
St Neots, seven miles to the west, has several major housing developments ongoing. A new one is being built to the east of new 'Loves Farm' development, and is being called.... 'Monksfields'.
Which will, in no way, cause any confusion. No siree.
If he wants to annoy voters however, forcing a general election in freezing January 2025 rather than September or October 2024 would be a good way to do it
Yes it's despicable and should be called out. I am sure you are very happy Starmer has done so much to root out these people from the Labour Party.
In 1715 that was changed to every seven years for the whole of Great Britain.
In 1911 it was changed to every five years.
So I suppose you could say the monarch *did* have that power until the Civil War, in law, and until the Orange Revolution, in practice.
Wiser monarchs than Charles I of course tended to exercise that power with restraint.
Most likely still with Jeremy Corbyn as LOTO.
But that's also the opposite of the point being made. It was about the prerogative being used to extend parliaments, not terminate them.
One happens automatically by law, the King doesn't choose.
From a personal point of view, I’d love the distraction of a January election. Jan can be a tedious month, so for politics geeks it would be like Christmas, all over again.
For the Country, May 2024 would be best. A reset is needed, even if those coming in have few ideas of consequence. At least the faces telling us how shit it all is will change.
All the Brexiteers who are now whining about how shit their Brexit is will continue to whine about it, even louder...
John Major also waited for 5 years from 1992 to 1997 so no reason for Rish to call an election in May 2024 when he still has 6 months extra to go if he wants it
We have the utterly doomed Stop the boats bill with the Rwanda option. Doomed, not because it will not pass but because it is a token gesture against the numbers now coming over. The Today program has been doing a series of longer reports about the boats problem in the Med. The pressure building up in Africa from rapidly growing populations and a huge amount of instability is immense. We only get a small secondary wave from this but the idea a policy in this country is going to stop it is frankly ridiculous.
Other than that the government is waiting for and hoping that inflation is going to fall. It will, but probably more slowly than thought by the Bank (again). The fall in inflation will eventually stop the reduction in real term incomes but any positive trend is going to be modest and has a lot of catching up to do after the last 18 months.
The next pledge was to reduce government debt. Not going to happen. Even if he really meant as a share of GDP very unlikely to happen.
And then there is shortening waiting lists in the NHS. Given the industrial unrest in the NHS with the forthcoming doctors' strikes this again looks out of reach.
It is a pretty modest platform for government and yet the scorecard looks unlikely to be a net positive. The paucity of ideas and ambition is palpable.
Edit: even the RHS is in on it, much to its credit.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/lawns/creating-wildflower-meadows
A good idea? Yes. A good implementation? No. A viable business? Hell no!
With the end of the FTPA elections can still only be called again by the PM asking the King for one or Parliament voting down the government and not selecting a new PM in their place
And he didn't 'keep them waiting,' he lost a vote of no confidence.