PM To Announce Election Date Tomorrow

Yes, current polls suggesting Labour would actually have a parliamentary majority for the first time for over a year.

If he'd called it during the 'Brown Bounce' however, shortly after he was made party leader and Prime Minister he probably stood the best chance. Unfortunately voters are fickle and an economic crisis made people dislike him for some reason.

Labour are incredibly popular up here still, the SNP have been slipping steadily with Labour's popularity rising.

Tories are as hated as they always have been and the Lib Dems I suppose suffer from what they always have done, wishy washy policies, no real commitment to key issues, spread out popularity rather than it being focused and whilst they adopt good policies they adopt some down right stupid ones as well whilst trying to balance inherently Liberal policies (with Liberalism never popular in the UK, not post-war anyway) with popularist policies which quite often betray the supposed liberal nature of the party.

Can someone explain this process to me? How is it that the ruling party gets to decide when to hold elections? What if they don't want to?

They have to by a certain date, some time in June I think it is this year, when 'The Queen' automatically calls for one.

An election must be held at least once every 5 years. Since 1997 Labour have usually held one every 4 years and pretty much always in May. Gordon Brown's held back because they've been trailing in the polls so he's kept almost the maximum amount of time between elections. To try to keep it fair he has to give at least a month's warning of the election date but people usually know anyway.

That's so odd. What's the rationale behind having the ruling party choose a date instead of having it fixed?

When was this announced? I got my voting card a few weeks back and it say that elections are going to be held on 6th May. They are always on 6th May aren't they?

Voting Lib Dems because I havn't heard so much as a murmur from a Lib Dem in donkey's. Our MP has stepped down and the Labour runner expected to get the seat is one of the local radio d.j's. nice bloke as well.

I agree, that is odd.

I have no idea. So much of our election system and the way the government runs aren't written down but are based on convention and tradition. It's kind of confusing and when I took that politics class in high school the teacher said "that's the way it is" and moved on.

If it's any consolation, the Scottish Parliamentaries have to be held every 4 years and there's a day written down as well which I can't remember off the top of my head but it's either at the begining of April or May, which makes way more sense to me. A month is nowhere near enough time to prepare for a surprise election. I mean can you imagine if Gordon Brown decided to surprise everyone by announcing a May 2009 election in April? Not one of the other parties would have been prepared to campaign giving Labour a huge advantage.

Weird. I haven't got mine yet. But no, the elections can be held at any time of year as long as the government gives a months warning for the other parties to prepare.

Yeah all my friends got their polling cards last week and it had the date of the election printed on them.

It's hardly odd, just different to the US.

Interesting. So those in the council know before it is announced

It is different, but I think it is just odd no matter what. I'd think it were odd if I lived in the UK.

To keep us all on our toes?

What's the purpose of the date being variable like that? Is there some good reason for it?