Interesting chat with a top Whitehall source regarding when the next election might be.
Now, the general consensus in the Westminster village is that it will be on May 6 2010 as it’s the first Thursday in May, the usual month for going to the polls; nice weather, etc. In theory, GB can hold out till June 3 but going right to the end would not look good, plus the PM would have zero control over events. Crueller minds might think, no change there then.
However, an interesting alternative has just crossed my ears that GB might opt for March. Why? Because this would mean that Chancellor Darling would not have to deliver a pre-election Budget.
Come next spring, chances are that the figures will show we are out of the recession. Yet, unemployment will still be rising and the deficit numbers will continue to look truly awful.
Thus, the thinking goes, why hold a Budget, usually in April, when you would have to unleash yet another torrent of bad news. True, the stats will confirm we are out of recession but we would probably have known that for months by next April.
There is also the little matter of tax hikes coming in from April 6. The higher rate of income tax plus the halving of personal allowances, hitting the better off in Middle Britain in all those well-to-do leafy marginal suburbs, will come in as will council tax rises for all of us and fuel duty increases for road-users. Would any premier want to start an election campaign on the back of a swath of tax hikes?
So a Thursday in March looks increasingly attractive.
Of course, if they did it GB and AD would get some political flak. So what? They could argue that given the uncertain state of the economy and given we haven’t had a Comprehensive Spending Review looking at the years ahead, that holding a Budget and a CSR together after the election would be the sensible thing to do to plot out an all singing and dancing fiscal programme for 2011 onwards.
Perish the thought, they would argue, that holding major economic statements after the poll had anything to do with party politics and making sure they had the best chance of clinging onto power.
Holding a March poll would mean using the parties’ spring conferences as launch pads into the election campaign proper.
So polling day on, say, Thursday March 25? Spring would have sprung, the nights would be getting lighter, the weather getting warmer and, most importantly of all, those green shoots would literally be popping up out of the ground. You heard it here first.
