https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/05/22/serving-up-a-metaphor/

When examining any event, we should ask two questions – why this? And why now? Which is why I am baffled by Rishi Sunak’s decision to call a general election on 4 July 2024. This is simply because historically prime ministers who are behind in the polls have clung on to the very last minute before holding an election. Only when a prime minister is well ahead in the polls – Thatcher in 1987, Blair in 2001 – do they tend to go early. Sunak, in contrast, has hung on long enough to alienate most of the electorate while failing to wait until January next year to invite Britain’s long-suffering voters to pack him off to his new job in Silicon Valley.

For the Tory Party – although not Sunak personally – an election in May 2023 would have made more sense. They could have sold the narrative that the adults were back in the room, and at least limited some of the losses. And insofar as an early(ish) election was being considered for 2024, then holding it on the same day as the local elections would have made more sense, since this would avoid another defeat prior to a general election. Having passed up a spring election though, it makes little sense to call an election just two weeks before parliament breaks up for the long summer holiday. Which was why, until this afternoon, most pundits expected an October or November election – using the party conferences as a springboard for the election campaign.

It is not unreasonable, therefore, to conclude that some unexpected information – which may or may not be in the public domain – caused Sunak – or possibly the Tory Party elders – to opt for an unplanned early election which they are, barring a miracle, going to lose. There are several “black swans” waiting in the wings which might have fed into the decision. One – which thus far hasn’t appeared in either establishment or social media speculation – is that King Charles III (or perhaps the Princess of Wales) may be more ill than is being let on. And while there is no rule or law to prevent an election campaign occurring during a period of official mourning, it may not be desirable to a Tory Party which is already 20 percent behind in the polls. Another is that the situation in Ukraine may be far worse than the establishment media is reporting, with the possibility that the Ukrainian army may be on the verge of collapse and/or that Zelenski may be about to be overthrown. A third – and more likely – possibility is that the global economy is in a far worse state than has been reported, with a repeat of the 2008 crash likely in the near future – best to get the election done before the crisis emerges.

These are all possible but unlikely reasons for today’s announcement. A more likely reason concerns the data behind today’s fall in the headline inflation figure. Most of the fall – which is merely a slowing of the rate at which prices are rising – was the somewhat artificial fall in the energy price cap – which sets an upper limit on the price energy companies can charge to standard rate customers. And since, even with this year’s bad weather, few British people have to turn the heating on over the summer months, this will make no difference to household spending. Behind the figures though, is a continued rise in housing costs – rent and mortgage payments – which are a consequence of Bank of England interest rate policy. And while the government may try to make the case that interest rates are set independently, most people will still blame the government for the fact that they are worse off.

This was something that Ronald Reagan played on to spectacular effect during the 1980 presidential debates. Reagan, a former Hollywood actor who understood about camera placement and effect, broke the fourth wall. Looking directly into the camera, he told the viewing audience that if they were better off than they had been in 1976, they should vote for his opponent. But if they were worse off, they should vote for him. Keir Starmer could do a lot worse than to copy this approach, because this will be the first British election since the Second World War in which the living standards of the majority have fallen.

This, perhaps, was why Sunak’s campaign team finally decided the gig was up. While the establishment media had attempted to polish the economic data, anyone looking for a ray of good news in the details would have quickly realised that there was none. Inflation had not fallen far enough, and core inflation remained stubbornly high. Worse still, American economic data had caused the Federal Reserve Bank to signal that the dollar interest rate would remain high and might even rise – a move that the Bank of England would have to follow to maintain the value of the pound. And so, a rate cut in June was off the table, with the next monetary policy committee meeting not until August – leaving little time for the effects of a rate cut to filter through to the electorate.

Moreover, behind the lack of good news is a growing mountain of foul-ups from profiteering water companies pumping raw sewage into the rivers, to police being told not to arrest criminals because the jails are full, and from failed immigration policy to people dying in the back of ambulances. All punctuated by scandals such as the Post Office miscarriages of justice and contaminated blood which illustrate the kind of sleaze that the Tories are readily associated with.

As I explained earlier this month, Sunak’s Tories are beset by the four factors which destroy governments:

Scandal – in the shape of the Downing Street parties during lockdown,
An economic crisis in the steep post-lockdown price rises,
Third-party challenges from two angles – the LibDems from the centre-left and Reform UK from the right, and
Simply having been in office for too long.

But none of these answers the question why now? They would have justified an election at any moment since the lockdowns.

There is, of course, another reason why the election may have been called – one which is too simple to be entertained by most pundits, but for which the nature of this afternoon’s announcement may have been an unintentional metaphor. In short, simple incompetence. There was no need to make the announcement outside Downing Street – where it was drowned literally (by heavy rain) and metaphorically (by a protestor loudly playing Blair’s 1997 campaign song). Rather like the dithering over when to call the election, and for much the same reason, Sunak’s campaign team put off the announcement in the hope that the weather would improve – instead it got far worse. But perhaps the greatest metaphor for Team Sunak’s performance was that nobody thought to give Sunak an umbrella – a lack of thinking that surely bodes ill for the election campaign itself.