It dosnt matter one jot what is said in the State Opening. If a Parliament session comes to and end when a General Election is called all legislation is finished. If the incumbent party wants to re-start legislative proceedings they can, just as a new party can. If there is a new manifesto alot of the Kings Speech will be changed anyway. But essentially, its all just words this close to a new Parliament. At best its signalling. Id imagine if Sunak does get his P45 a new tory leader will want to bring back hanging and try to use a wind turbine as you can hang more off those and this will be page 1 of the manifesto next to putting homeless people in rwanda.
Do you really think Sunak is going to care about the 5 eyes memoranda?
Edit: Considering he knows he is going to loose this election. The good money was on for a spring election due to party pressure, but then Sunak removed banker’s bonus caps to counter that problem. The general feeling now is for an autumn election, and all moves Sunak is doing point to that. And because of the snowballing of events that people are aware of, some are even thinking he will wait right into 2025.
My personal opinion has always been that Sunak will hold until the India deal is completed. He wants the final big pay off. He does not care about the outlook of the election due to timing or the outcome.
i dont think its down to him entirely. Its not just the rule stating we dont have an election at the same time (which is apparently real), it just makes sense to not have an election when our allies are also doing it. For example, should Trump look like winning it will be a nightmare 24/7 news cycle for months and no political party here will be able to get their messaging out. They pay a fortune for those PR cycles and those PR companies will want to maximise their opportunities. Seeing how strong Labour are today, they wont want to be fighting US news cycles as many of the issues will knock the manicured voter targeting off.
Theres sessions of parliament which means they wont call it during the summer holidays, so they wait until october, then its 4 weeks from the announcement. Before august theres the period after easter, again 4 weeks heads up means june or july. I dont think weve had an election in those months (id have to check) but tactically you dont want a summer of Labour celebrations before that same restart of parliament in october. The best time is either Oct/Nov or April. So it will have to be called in February or March.
This is all just my gut feeling. He could just get it over with and call it before christmas but he likely thinks theres still time to knock Labour back a bit and save a few seats.
You are speaking tactically. My point was that Sunak does not care about the tactics. The Tories have squandered tactically advantages over and over. As for summer elections they are a lot more common than you think. Thatcher, Blair and May were all elected in June. The last July election was with Attlee in 1945. I had to check, you piqued my interest.
I like the spin of PR min/maxing. It will be difficult to get a message out once the real court cases start on March 25th. My gut feeling is that, if anything, Sunak will want the Trump media circus to dampen any Labour messaging. The reality is that Labour do not need to get any messages out, since they have such a huge lead in the polls. It is Sunak that will need to convince the public to change their minds. This would follow in the line the Tories have ran since 2019 of doing everything exactly wrong, so it would not surprise me.
I’ve been saying this for months. He strikes me as not being in it for his party, his country nor his political legacy. He’s doing everything for himself and his business connections.
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