I was expecting an announcement about a general election for the UK today. By my reckoning, if there was to be an election before the end of the year, it would need to be in October at the latest. I don't know quite how many weeks notice one has to give, but I'm guessing 4 weeks or a calendar month. Elections are usually on a Thursday, so that limits the number of dates left.
I can't imagine we'd have an election too close to Christmas; that rules out December. November starts to see grotty weather and coldness, so that could put off voters visiting their polling stations. The week of Guy Fawkes Night would be a strange time to vote for a new Parliament (after all, Guy Fawkes was the fellah that tried to blow up Parliament), so my bet would have been for the last Thursday in October. Thats the 25th October. Or at a pinch the 1st of November.
But as we are past the calendar month point and we have a weekend in front of us, I'd have thought now would have been the time to announce it. The Conservative conference probably throws a spanner in the works. If it was announced this weekend then the half of the Conservative MPs that make the trip to Blackpool could have a field day chatting about it. That means it could be as late as next Thursday before an announcement, with a view to also running a spoiler on the Conservative conference output.
Its interesting, because the latest the UK has had an election in any year since 1945 was 25 October in 1951. Never November, December or January and the earliest date in February is 23rd. So if it isn't by 25th October/1st November, then I wonder if we will wait until next February/March? Strictly, of course, we don't need to have an election until 2009, but I can't see Gordon waiting that long. Presumably some of the monetary gremlins will start to go munching if its left too long.
The chart below shows my 'look back into history' view of the last 50 or so years of votes. Nearest (biggest) are the most recent ones...
And here it is as a table:
So will UK get an election? I suppose its still anybody's guess?
No comments:
Post a Comment