This is when there really could be a general election

It’s come to something when repeated on-camera denials from Andy Burnham that he has no plans to call a general election are blithely discounted. “I don’t know how many times I’ve done this now but yes, I can rule out calling a general election in the next 12 months,” the Prime Minister said wearily on Wednesday. It won’t be enough to stop the chatter. Westminster’s army of sofa Kremlinologists, tooled up with strong coffee and confirmation-bias, likes nothing more than election speculation, safe in the knowledge that, like a clock that stops every five years, they’ll eventually be right. Shorts And you can see why. Burnham seems more focused on his goals for the world following the next election than on the immediate next few years. Reforming social care, amending the pension triple lock, voting reform, and pursuing European Union membership are all priorities for the next parliament, not this one. A kick-the-can Budget that didn’t tackle the ballooning welfare bill or defence spending did nothing to dispel the notion that Burnham is going to head to the country much earlier than the 2029 deadline. One poll last week even put Labour on 30 per cent, 10 points clear of Reform UK and eight points ahead of the Tories. Win an election, say the pundits to the Prime Minister. Then, with a fresh mandate, impose the tax rises that would allow him to meet his ambitions to increase spending and expand the reach of the welfare state. The trouble is, it’s just not true. No one in the cash-strapped Labour Party is preparing for an election beyond starting the normal process of fundraising. It is simply mischief-making by the opposition parties. The Tories even convinced themselves Burnham might use his party conference speech to call an election. This week the Liberal Democrats let it be known they put the chance of a poll on 10 December at 30 per cent. In 2007 Gordon Brown stood on the brink of a calling a snap election. Within weeks, he had backed away. Then the Tories handed out stunt bottles of Newcastle Ale labelled “Bottler Brown”. This autumn they tried to repeat the trick, handing baffled journalists at their conference water with a “Bottler Burnham” label on it. The Prime Minister’s political opponents should take the advice of Mean Girls savant, Regina George: stop trying to make “fetch” happen. “The opposition parties are trying to push us into a Gordon Brown-esque situation and create the speculation from which we feel we can’t back down without looking like we are bottling it,” a very senior Labour source said. “I think our political rivals are doing exactly what I would do in their situation and trying to make sure speculation hits fever pitch, so it looks like a backing down when something that was never going to happen doesn’t happen,” the source added. The same people who would plot an election including No 10 Chief of Staff James Purnell and First Secretary of State Louise Haigh are busy with their day jobs, which includes writing the 10-year plan for government, due to be published in early December after a major speech on Europe. “Andy wants a series of meaningful conversations off the back of the 10-year plan and that doesn’t point to an election,” an ally of his said. There are also some clues to be found in the Budget documents. The fiscal rules are on a three-year lead time. What matters is what the Chancellor says he will do to bring down debt and borrowing three years hence, not actually doing it. On Wednesday, John Healey said he would bring down debt in 2029-30, which also happens to be the year of a general election. This time next year, when he presents his spending review of tough choices (just don’t call it austerity), he could push those on-paper cuts to 2030-31, the year after the latest possible date for an election. If, instead, departmental hard choices are pencilled in for 2029-30 then it would be time to head to Ladbrokes for a punt on an election in May 2028 because no one realistically expects Burnham to fight an election after slashing spending. “The smart money is on May [20]28,” a minister said this week. In the meantime, Donald Trump might have ended his war in the Middle East, energy prices and inflation may come down and the economic picture could look brighter. If not, Burnham needs to convince the public if he wants to run an election campaign on a foundation of tax rises. “After the spending review, Andy can say to the public, ‘we have done what we can within the limit of the existing envelope’ and then you start rolling the pitch for tax rises,” a Labour insider said. “You have a national conversation about what people want and are prepared to pay for and then Andy can say to voters: ‘I know this is what you want because you’ve been talking about it’.” Inside Labour right now the turkeys don’t want an election for Christmas. “There is zero enthusiasm in the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] for an election that might deliver Andy his own personal mandate but deprive a lot of us our jobs,” a Labour MP said. Reflecting on the Budget and the possibility of an election, another Labour MP added: “A hundred quid off a £500 energy bill isn’t an electoral bung that’d cut it.” Whatever the evidence, it won’t stop Westminster’s professional class of drama llamas.