The House of Commons shut up shop for the summer recess on Thursday after a momentous session that included a change of prime minister, a restructured Cabinet and the almost indecently swift dismantling of the previous incumbent’s legacy.
In a blur of almost Cromwellian puritanism, Gordon Brown announced that Manchester’s megacasino will not, after all, be built; the possession of cannabis will be subject to greater penalties; and the move to 24-hour drinking is to be reviewed.
While the Roundheads were taking over the citadel, David Cameron’s Cavaliers were reeling from the assault, performing poorly in the first two by-elections of the Brown era. Inevitably, as MPs packed their buckets and spades (or, given the extraordinary weather, their waders and life jackets), the talk was of early general elections.
If Brown really wanted to take advantage of his ‘bounce’ in the polls he would go to the country this autumn. That would not give the Tories any time to recover from a difficult few months during which the mutterings about Cameron’s leadership have become louder and more insistent.
But neither Labour nor the Tories are financially or organisationally in any condition for a snap election, with many candidates not chosen and the coffers (in Labour’s case, at least) bare. More than that, there are constitutional reasons why Brown should not call an autumn election. With no written rules and no statutorily fixed term, we rely on the good faith of the prime minister to use his power to ask for a dissolution of Parliament in a responsible and reasonable way.
Labour won a majority in the Commons of more than 60 seats just two years ago; it has not been defeated in a vote of confidence; Brown is not under threat as leader of the Labour party. There is, then, no good reason to ask the head of state for an election.
By next spring, things will be different. The government will have been in office for three years and, arguably, could get away with requesting a dissolution. There is a constitutional rule of thumb that an administration with a majority should get more than halfway through its five-year term before returning to the country for a fresh mandate. The argument that Brown is ‘entitled’ to seek his own mandate because he was not elected by anyone — not even by his own party — does not hold water. Despite Tony Blair’s best efforts to redefine the role, we do not have a presidential system in this country yet.
The prime minister is the person able to command a majority in the Commons and that is Gordon Brown. There were not elections after Margaret Thatcher was deposed in 1990, nor when Harold Wilson resigned in 1976, nor immediately after Harold Macmillan quit in 1963. Also, the idea that it was Blair, not Brown, who singlehandedly won the 2005 election for Labour is, at the very least, debatable. Hardly a day went by during the campaign when the two were not together, almost joined at the hip, like a dual monarchy. It was always clear that it was a ‘buy one, get one free’ leadership, and the Tories even devised a slogan ‘Vote Blair, get Brown’. They were right.
By May of 2008, Brown would be able to argue that he has been in office for one year, has done things differently from his predecessor and the country should have the chance to cast judgement on his first 12 months and give him a fresh mandate.
His problem by then, one suspects, is that the Brown bounce will have gone flat and Labour’s opinion poll lead will have evaporated. He might even be behind. If the Tories get their act together, he should be. Few third-term governments sustain any mid-term popularity for the obvious reason that most things that go wrong during it are their fault and not that of the previous lot.
While last week’s by-elections in Ealing and Sedgefield were calamitous for the Tories because they made no inroads at all, Labour’s share of the vote fell by 10% compared with 2005, which would cost them their Commons majority if replicated in a general election.
All prime ministers are cautious about calling elections, sometimes disastrously so, as James Callaghan was in 1978, when he might have won an October poll but waited, and the subsequent Winter of Discontent ensured Labour’s 18 years in the wilderness.
Brown has demonstrated a capacity for springing surprises and for taking some bold moves, from the day he gave the Bank of England control over interest rates to his recent package of constitutional reforms. But if his government is at stake, prudence will once more be his bosom companion.
If I were to put some money on the likely date of a general election, I would plump for the spring of 2009 at the earliest. But then again, like the new prime minister, I don’t gamble.