The 'voterless election' spells doom for call-me-Rishi
A summer election is Sir Keir Starmer's to lose as the winds of change blow. There is more than a whiff of 1997 about UK politics right now, and 2015 reversed in Scotland specifically
My work is entirely reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber
Alternatively why not make a one-off donation? All support is appreciated
SIR JOHN MAJOR once quipped that 1997 was a “voteless election”, where there proved no fruits for his labours building a strong and lasting economic boom. The electorate had ceased listening to the Conservatives, a predicament which proved fatal for his premiership. That was then, this is now. Even if economic history were to repeat, and an economic revival were to be engineered, by calling a summer election Rishi Sunak has confessed he fears the same fate would inevitably await him.
And what then of the other government the Scottish electorate live beneath? How does an early election impact on the SNP? It is hard not to feel a measure of sympathy for John Swinney given today’s turn of events. With a General Election months earlier than planned for, the new SNP leader has no time to turn the ship around for his party. Upon assuming the burden of a First Ministership that nobody else in his party wanted, he faces an opening night consisting of an SNP electoral massacre for Westminster. Rishi Sunak’s early election turns Mr Yesterday into a lame duck First Minister from the get-go.
Only Labour’s tail will be up, Sir Keir Starmer has had his party on a war footing for months now, determined not to be blindsided by these very turns of events.
“either we’re delivering for you or we’re not” - Rishi Sunak announcing his ‘five pledges’ upon taking office.
Rishi Sunak’s central predicament is one with no good solution. On the one hand, he entered office pledging to be a results-based Prime Minister. A summer election risks facing the country before any real results - on the economy, cost of living, immigration - can tangibly be felt by the voters. But if the voters have stopped listening to his party - as with Sir John Major back in the 1990s - why delay till November?
We now know which option Mr Sunak has plumped for, betting the house on a summer vote. Perhaps a key motivating factor in his decision making was May’s inflation news. Sure, annual inflation rate fell sharply in April, yes prices are rising more slowly than at any time in almost three year. And absolutely, inflation is lower in the UK than it is in the EU. But on the flip side of all that good news is that at 2.3%, the inflation number was slightly higher than expected. It was supposed to be 2.1%. Core inflation did not fall as sharply as expected in April.
Bottom line? The economic news regarding cost of living has proved disappointing. So why wait? Perhaps Mr Sunak doesn’t expect the sort of economic feel-good factor to tangibly show up to make a cold November GE vote worth delaying events for?
Our results-based PM will have paid close attention to inflation in the services sector when deciding which way to jump. Given it is closely monitored by the Bank of England interest rate setters, inflation in services sector barely shifted at all; 6% to 5.9%.
What that means - if I were to speculate - is that businesses simply opted to pass on the higher costs from the national living wage increase (went up from £10.42 to £11.44 last month). Businesses, I reckon, simply passed onto their customers that increase. Meanwhile it’s worth noting inflation in the hotels and restaurants sector actually rose last month from 5.8% to 6%. And those are sectors of the economy populated by - you guessed it - minimum wage workers.
The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson penned a column titled ‘The Valley of Death’, decrying any notion of a summer vote as beyond foolish. But that only makes sense if two things are still true:
Voters are even still listening to Rishi Sunak’s government
That the economic news is actually going to be meaningfully better if one punts till November
Given the latest inflation news from April and May, there are good grounds to argue that the second point is highly debatable. The statistics, as I’ve attempted to outline for you all, isn’t exactly painting that rosy a picture on cost of living, core inflation and any future ‘feel good factor’.
And as for the first, the mood du jure feels more akin to Sir John’s ‘voterless election’ of 1997. I struggle to believe, given the mountain of polling evidence, that British voters are even still listening to this Westminster Government.
Bad news good news?
While a summer election is almost an admission of how desperate the Tory plight is at a UK level, here in Scotland a July time vote could actually be good news for their party north of Hadrian’s wall.
According to Savanta’s May 8th poll, the Scottish Conservatives vote may hold up at around 17%, with the SNP falling to 33% (SLab 37%). On those numbers, given the nationalists vote is plummeting faster than the Scottish Tories vote (and one or two helpful boundary changes and new seats) they could (on a good night) hope to hold all their current Scottish MPs or even pick one up.
For the SNP however, there is no such hoped for positive pathway to aim for. They just defenestrated Humza the Brief, coronating John the Not-So-Honest. Their assumption had been Mr Swinney would have had a measure of time to steady the ship, pull some levers and get public services working again before a November vote. Yes, the SNP were always going to suffer a bad night (that’s why nobody else wanted John Swinney’s new job), but they had hoped for mitigation.
Rishi Sunak has swept said hopes away. And pathway for mitigating the worst of the damage Scottish Labour are set to inflict on their Westminster cohort has just vanished down the plughole.
Mind you, it is always a mistake to assume the SNP have policy positions. Their approach to governance has something of the goldfish chasing after the food pellet about it. Something that could very well become even worse, given the polling has me feeling a General Election in Scotland has a whiff of ‘2015’ about it (only with SNP/Lab roles reversed)
Swinney now faces being the lamest of lame ducks should the SNP under his new leadership (same as the old leadership) immediately goes down to an electoral massacre. The new First Minister now has mere months to figure out how to craft a message that’d make his party relevant in a UK GE dominated by ‘get the Tories out’ rhetoric from Labour. Additionally, he has no time to pull levers and get public services more functional in time to let voters feel it. Furthermore, absolutely no time for any new policy announcements to happen that can capture the agenda.
A General Election is coming and the Scottish polling has the SNP on 29% to Scottish Labour’s 39%. YouGov’s 17 May 2024 poll would hand the SNP a mere 8 MPs. That would wipe-out any warm feelings John Swinney currently enjoys from his own side.
In my latest Think Scotland column, I reflected on Swinney’s fair weather friends problem. I reiterate, as he faces having to swallow Humza Yousaf’’s GE disaster, it’s worth reading Shakespeare’s ‘Friends and Flatterers’
Every one that flatters thee
Is no friend in misery.
Words are easy, like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find:
Every man will be thy friend
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend;
But if store of crowns be scant,
No man will supply thy want.
1997 meet 2015
The General Election is on and set for this summer and there is more than a whiff of 1997 and 2015 circulating.
The GE date suggests the economic recovery Sunak had hoped for isn’t coming, instead he’s opting to go earlier. At a British level, this feels a lot like 1997, with the Conservatives lumbered with a fateful ‘voterless election’. Meanwhile in Scotland the implications could reduce a new First Minister to lame-duck territory as the whiff of 2015 flows over the land.
In either case, this is a ‘change’ election and both Rishi Sunak’s UK Government and John Swinney’s SNP are on the wrong side of voter frustrations. July 4th is Sir Keir Starmer’s election to lose. Game on.
My work is entirely reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber
Alternatively why not make a one-off donation? All support is appreciated