I’m calling the date of the next General Election

[Lettucelet]

Thursday 24 October 2024.

My logic is thus:

1. Tory MPs with kids in private school will want the election after the next academic year starts so that they will get an extra year VAT free while Labour gets its house in order. This is why Jeremy Hunt said the election wouldn’t happen until the Autumn.

2. Tory MPs will want to take full advantage of the summer holidays/recess so they won’t want to campaign in July/August when they could be on a yacht instead.

3. Term will start Week Commencing Monday 9 October at the latest. They will want to have a week to sort things out.

4. So, 6 weeks after the Thursday of the week after 9 September is Thursday 24 October which fits in nicely with half term and they can go on holiday again.

Place your bets.

My money is on 5th December

Tories will want to maximize the oldie vote (so will want to avoid bad weather / dark evenings which would lower turnout) and minimize the student vote as pp said. Plus too near US elections won’t look good internationally. So I’m going 17 Oct. Wish they’d hurry up and decide so I can plan my election night kick-out-the-Tories party.

I'm going for October too. They want to get at least one flight off to Rwanda which they hope will give them a bounce in the polls. Thats not going to happen until the summer. Then it's parliamentary recess until early September followed by conferences.

They'll want to avoid winter and their core not coming out to vote, so mid-October would be the right time, before the clocks go back and it gets too cold. An election on 17th October would mean Sunak would have to call it by 12th September.

Why? That's my birthday!

I have generally thought the election would be January to hold on as long as possible but I've just been reading that MPs are not putting in letters to get rid of Sunak. That makes me think that perhaps he's told them he's about to announce an election.

On one hand this would make sense because the Tories have done so badly, but on the other hand that would need Sunak to admit to having lost really badly, and I'm not sure he is capable of that.

What would have made sense would have been to hold the GE at the same time as the local elections.
In that scenario I think that the Tories would have held onto more council seats and fewer people would be in the habit of voting to GTTO. If it was not before it is now abundantly clear that there will only be one winner at the GE, people like to vote for the winner. Leaving the election later only makes it worse for the Tories.

Sunak's reverse midas touch in action again!

It will be end July when the students and young families are on holiday etc. He is relying on the older committed voters who don’t tend to go off so much for travels then.

Me too!

I'll put you down as a 'maybe' then for the forthcoming election?

😂

And at your username, you should nab some good url while you’re at it you could make some £

I thought that was the time of year Boris called the last GE. But actually I have since read that it was the 12th December so I would like to revise my bet to the 12th if the rules allow @Lettucelet ?

Your Birthday should be safe 😊

Since when did this government do anything to save taxpayers money? Are you having a laugh?

« Plum job »?? He hardly needs the money.
The (quite racist?) remark re Christmas will come as news to my Hindu friends who enjoy the festive season as much as anyone

Yeh what’s with the Christmas remark, I think you’re right on that @Marjoriefrobisher

😂

Yup, this is a democracy and I defer to the will of the people.

This is what I think. They also won't want it later as the campaigning is a nightmare in terrible weather.

Is is correct that VAT can't be added to school fees for that academic year once the year has started?????

The weather would only come into it if everything else was good. As the tories are in the shit following the locals. Their primary focus will be calling it at a time when they think they have the best chance to win. So that is likely going to be later .

plus most older folks will go out in bad weather, it is the younger ones who will more likely give it a miss. Older folks tend to see it more as their duty to vote.

A lot of older folk have postal votes now. Certainly my Mum and all her friends have done so for years, now. I don't think a Decemeber date would deter the tories in that respect.

Agree that they like to try and make it difficult for the students, though.

A December date didn’t deter the Tory voters last GE 🤷🏼‍♀️

If Sunak had any sense he would have it sooner rather than later. Time will only buy him more scandals, more failures and more bankrupted councils.

The Tory party is in a death spiral.

They will call notice of the election either as soon as they return from summer recess or once the conference season is over.

Given Sunak's key skill is his reverse Midas touch, I expect him to wait until after he has had a car crash conference with his successors arguing with themselves in a paperbag, whilst Labour have a successful conference demonstrating they are ready to be the government.

I actually think sunak is doing the right thing for the country financally. However he lacks charisma and gravitas, and doing the right thing, is not the same as doing the popular thing,

he is unable to take people with him to explain it. Amd it means tories out. We will have four years of labour, fucking it up, and the electorate will take them out. Aa they do every single time. As every so often labour have to be given power. It lasts for 4 years, we all suffer then the electorate take them out.