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England Going For A May Election?
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13-01-2010 7:24pm#1The rumours supposedly in inner journalistic circles have been building up for weeks as regards the next British election.
Now a British minister has made a vocal slip-up and possibly hinted even further that plans are already in action for an election in May this year!
SourceAn embarrassing slip of the tongue from Health Secretary Andy Burnham has provided another hint that the general election has been pencilled in for May. The gaffe came as Mr Burnham was unveiling plans to restrict sunbed use by children.
"I hope you will add your weight in whatever way you can to the campaign, and if we focus on it we can change a little piece of the law by May this year," he told the audience in Westminster, before adding hastily: "And indeed later this year."
The crunch poll must be held by June, but most observers now expect it to take place on May 6 - the same day as local government elections.
Europe minister Chris Bryant made an even more blatant reference to the timing recently as he discussed Britain's relations with Latin American.
"I hope that by the time of the general election on May 6, relations will have improved," he told a group of envoys and academics.
Would we benefit from a new British conservative government?
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I don't think this is a secret! The last election was in May 2005 so they have to hold one by end of that month anyway.
Nowhere near a secret I'd say.
General election deadline is June 3, not May though, even though the current parliament met first on May 11, 2005. I can explain why properly but it'd take a while (for the incurably curious, see the 1715 Septennial Act (as modified by the 1911 Parliament Act section 7) and the 1983 Representation of the People Act (schedule 1) and bear in mind that the convention since 1935 is to have general elections on Thursdays). Technically under the 1694 Meeting of Parliament Act the Crown has three years to call an election but the writ will be moved earlier (earlier as in the next day as opposed to three years later
).
The local elections are already scheduled for May 6 so it's easily the most obvious guess that the general elections, which have to be scheduled around then, will be scheduled for then. The Spectator did this basic guesswork already and last May strongly suggested the that the date would be May 6 on the basis that Brown would want to hang on as long as possible to try and recover in the opinion polls and that if Labour took a hammering at the local polls on May 6 they'd find it hard to get people out again to canvass and vote for recent losers. Add to that the reduced cost of having it on the same day as locals (or rather that the Conservatives won't be able to attack them for spending on two days instead of one) and the May date has been pencilled in for rather a long time now.
May 6 makes the most sense for everyone. I'd say it's been a done deal for a while unless Brown has a specific self-beneficial reason to move earlier.0 -
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