This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.
The key phrase I keep using in my copy is widely expected.
It’s widely expected that the general election will take place next year.
But, actually, there doesn’t have to be one for ages.
If Rishi Sunak wanted to keep his brown Prada suede loafers on the No 10 shoe rack until the last possible minute, he could wait until December 17 2024.
He wouldn’t (as far I understand it) even have to head up the mall to ask the King as parliament would automatically dissolve.
Polling day would then be expected to take place 25 working days later, which, by my reckoning, given that it’s Christmas, would mean January 25 2025.
The first Burns Night election in history.
Though it would probably need to happen the day before, on the Thursday, because, even though it’s not a legal obligation, that’s just how we’ve done things since 1931.
Can the country wait another 15 months for an election?
Polling says no.
According to YouGov, 26% of voters want the election before the end of this year, while 23% think spring next year would be best.
Just 7% want the PM to hold on until January 2025.
Even 55% of Tory voters want the election before the autumn of next year.
What about the Prime Minister, can he wait 15 months for another election?
Last week's unexpected net zero intervention would also suggest no.
Over the weekend, one paper reported that the government had put councils on “red alert” for a May election.
The Sun said local authorities had been told to “be election ready” by next spring.
What made this surprising was that the consensus so far was that the vote would probably happen towards the end of next year.
Ladbrokes have between October and December as the favourite in their date of the next general election market, at 1/2 compared to 7/2 for between April and June 2024.
The thinking is that by next Autumn, maybe the economy might be in better shape, they’ll have managed to implement some of their immigration policies, picked a fight with the ECHR, announced some big levelling up promises and maybe voters’ memories of Liz Truss and her mini-budget and Boris Johnson and his partying will be a little foggier.
But last week’s hastily organised press conference from Downing Street, in which Sunak ditched a number of key green policies, has challenged that consensus.
It wasn’t so much a speech as a pitch, the sort of thing you’d hear at a manifesto launch.
"The real choice confronting us is do we really want to change our country and build a better future for our children, or do we want to carry on as we are? I have made my decision: we are going to change.”
Although it may have annoyed Tory MSP Maurice Golden, the newspapers whose readers the Tories are keen to woo loved it.
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“Keep this up, Prime Minister and you might just see off Sir Keir,” said the Mail On Sunday.
“Whisper it, but the Tories may yet be able to end the sense of inevitability around a Labour victory,” wrote a Telegraph columnist.
Ultimately, the exact date will be decided by Sunak and his advisers, including Issac Levido, the Australian political strategist who helped Boris Johnson win the biggest Tory majority in decades in 2019, and who has, for the last year, been telling Tories of the "narrow path" they can take to win the next election.
One Labour contact said they expect the Tories to “try and make time their ally” and “give themselves the longest possible chance of benefiting from a hypothetical economic recovery.”
But what if that recovery doesn’t come?
Interest rates are currently at their highest level for 15 years, and there are still millions of mortgage holders on cheap fixed-rate deals who are about to switch.
Last week, the IFS, warned that 1.4 million mortgage holders could see their disposable income fall by more than 20% over the next year
That’s a lot of pain for a lot of people.
The most recent YouGov poll had the Tories on 27%, some 16 points behind Labour.
Will Sunak wait until he knows he can win, or will he go when he thinks he can do the least damage to his party?
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