UK General Election May 2008

"Mr Brown, who did not mention any election in his speech, has so far refused to rule out an autumn poll."
-BBC online article

Well actually the chances of actually having a November election are the chances of me winning the lottery on Saturday, pretty slim.

Since 1802 (UK established 1801) there have been 53 general elections with a total of 6 being held in November, 1806, 1812, 1852, 1922, 1935. The last autumn election was in October 1974, since then the last 7 elections have all been held between April and June.

In recent times it would seem that a spring / early summer date is preferred. One of the reasons behind this is simply electorate turn out. In the winter people stay indoors so numbers are down and whichever party you are in, voters count. Especially for a party, usually for the party in power, whose voters may be a bit indifferent to voting if it is cold . After all if you want to remove a party from power you are more likely to go out and vote whatever the weather. So the sitting government has a numbers disadvantage which could cost them the election.

However weather aside, why else wont we have an election this autumn? Well Tony Blair has just left, we don't really know what Gordon Brown is all about. Gordon may be worried that the electorate might think that a change in party would be as good as a change in leader.

The cards that Gordon is keeping close to his chest is that he already knows the date of the election, it is going to be next May. Just long enough for us to find out what he is about, for him to run a campaign which says this change is only just the beginning, vote for Gordon for more of the same.

Tony Blair is nicely in the past but not too far in the past that Gordon wont be able to blame mistakes on him. The Iraq war, that was Tony possibly right at the time but in the future I will change things. NHS Problems, that was Tony too, but I have made a start so keep me for a better future.

The difference between November and May is that in May Gordon will be a prime minister with lots of new ideas which he is starting to implement and which have not had time to go wrong.

The Tories in November will be the voice of change but in May will once again be the opposition with no hope and a big case of sour grapes.

Of course Gordon wont tell us that the election is in May because that would start the general election campaign and what harm is there in speculating about when a general election might be.The government might learn some useful polling information for free and change some policies to improve their ranking.

The media love it even they know there is no chance of an autumn election but it gets everyone talking about who is and who isn't electable. After all if they couldn't talk about a potential general election they might actually have to start trying to explain party conferences and actual politics to people.

Data Sources:
Election facts taken from United Kingdom general elections (wikipedia)