If it be now, be now. When you are 20 points behind, there can never be a good time to call a general election. By going to the country this evening on the spurious pretext that inflation is slightly, erm, worse than expected, Rishi Sunak is only being honest. Despite the claims of Steve Bray’s boom box, things could only get worse. Landslide defeat in July or wipeout in November?
One doesn’t want to be too gloomy. There is a month and a half of campaigning to look forward to. As Theresa May’s example so irrefutably proved, it is more than possible for a party to scupper a lead of the size of Keir Starmer’s in such a sort of space of time. It’s not a done deal that the Conservatives will lose the next election. Labour are not beyond imploding. Pigs have flown.
But saying that Sunak might prove to be Southampton’s answer to Harry Truman is to be an optimist of ludicrous proportions. The Tories might win this election in the same way that I may one day play for England. With a lot of hard work and an awful lot more luck, it might just be possible. But the time for such optimism is past. We are staring down the barrel at our worst defeat in history.
There is an awful lot to sort. Manifestos must be drawn up. More MPs will announce they are standing down. There are an awful lot of seats that will need candidates, and fast. As ever, I welcome your submission of any hits and tips from your constituency at william@conservativehome.com. ConservativeHome is the voice of our party membership. We need your help now, as ever.
As does the Prime Minister. As he stood in the rain – whoever suggested that was wise deserves their redundancy being brought forward by six weeks – and laid out his message, it wasn’t difficult to be underwhelmed. But he was right. Labour do have no plan. Economic stability is essential. And even if one does feel a sense of ennui, a Tory government is always preferable to a Labour one.
The odds are staggering. But the Prime Minister has scheduled his election for the day before the Headingley Test. First Ian Botham, then Ben Stokes. Now Rishi Sunak? Stranger things. But the curtain has begun to fall. ConservativeHome will be with you every step of the way for the next few weeks. But the rest is silence.
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