Nick Robinson told that there will not be 25th October election

Click here for more.

Gordon Brown will certainly be a diminished figure if he doesn't go to the country now.

He'll look weak and indecisive after all this speculation.

He'll also look very political.  He could have easily killed the speculation and focused the nation's minds on his exciting ideas for changing the country (like, um, Citizen's Juries).

1.30pm: The reason for it (probably) not being 25/10 - according to The Spectator's James Forsyth - is that Gordon Brown does not want to look like he's undermining the Tory Conference and it's half-term week.  The trouble with the following week is that the clocks will have changed.  I still think an election is likely but Nick Robinson's story has made me doubt a little bit...

1.45pm: Stephan Shakespeare suggests to me that another reason for 1st November is that people will have just been paid.

Comments

[Ned]

I shall re-post my comment on this in the other thread:

If it's true, I would say that the chances are no election this year. If Brown was serious about it, he would go at the end of this week, completely overshadow the Conservative conference (should it even happen), emasculate any Cameron bounce from our conference and have the Poll before November darkness and cold arrives.

I can see no positives for him in delaying to November (only the negatives outlined above), therefore if 25 October is out so is an election this year, in my view. Depends on Nick Robinson being right, though.

[chrisblore]

He may end up looking weak and indecisive but until we get our act together and appear a credible alternative to this shambolic government, the people will continue to say "better the devil we know".

We need more proposals similar to the good work done on crime and the broken society, coupled with a concerted and sustained attack on Brown. I fear we may have wasted our chance this summer to strike early at the heart of his programme. He's having it too easy at the moment, despite the fact that he has been behind everything this blundering government has done for the last 10 years. He must not get away with this "change" line with 'Citizens' Juries' portraying a cuddly image of himself.

[Moral minority]

So it's 1st November! Delays in candidate selection and getting the cash in?

[William Norton]

I wonder if Brown will also follow Callaghan and sing a song at the conference?

[LJ]

Please view the following link:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91211-1285456,00.html

[Dave Bartlett]

"Gordon Brown will certainly be a diminished figure if he doesn't go to the country now.

He'll look weak and indecisive after all this speculation."

I don't see why he'd look any such thing. The various commentators might look a little silly, but so what.

[David Cooper]

From the BBC News today: -

"The public sector net cash requirement was in deficit by £5bn, compared with £3.7bn in August 2006.

And the government's prefered measure, of public sector net borrowing, was £9.1bn, from £6.7bn a year earlier."

Not quite as high profile a calamity as Northern Rock, but a further issue to take into account. Do we begin to detect the clucking of yet more chickens coming home to roost?

[justin Hinchcliffe]

Let's hope the election is this year - if it's held in May we risk losing some of the FPTP GLA members and scores, thousands, of councillors.

[kingbongo]

David Cooper is right - the PSNBR is way out from forecast and this is on higher than expected growth. If the predicted 1.7% growth happened next year then the Goblin King's borrowing binge would really come home to voters.

Personally I think he's too chicken to run this year and will wait until 2010 in the hope that something turns up. It won't, but we won't win unless we get a clear message over - the Gummer Goldsmith disaster cost us traction at an important time.

[Robin Millar]

Two reasons why Brown's leadership style suggests he will not call an autumn election.

[Andrew Woodman]

Are you having a laugh Justin?

My gut instinct is this is a wind up that's got out of control, and won't happen.

[James Burdett]

There have been a number of post-war elections in October, only one of which has produced a decent result. From memory 1951 produced a small Conservative Majority of 21 of thereabouts, 1959 produced a Conservative Majority of 100 or so. 1964 produced a Labour majority of 4, necessitating another election in 1966. 1974 produced a Labour majority of 3. So on the basis of that little lot Autumn elections seem to more often than not produce close results. This will probably be going through Gordon Brown's mind as he mulls whether to call an election. Although I still think this is all gamesmanship on his part.

[Mr Angry]

If true than Brown has let Cameron off the hook and given us one last chance to get our act together and start to look and sound like a party that people will want to vote for and not some unelectable continuation of Blair's New Labour.

Conference is now a golden opportunity to clearly demonstrate that we are still the Conservative party and that we have listened to what the voters want and what they care about and that we are prepared to do something about those things and not just introduce new taxes to salve the guilt of multimilionaire eco obsessives.

[Edison Smith]

A poll reported in the Telegraph today commissioned by the Unions suggests 40% of people haven't made a choice yet on how they would vote in an Autumn election.

That's huge.

It shows that people are still floating enough to seriously affect the result either way.

We need a good conference, an unashamed love-in, then some beef from Cameron and Osborne in terms of direction and policy, good coverage, and that poll gap will come down.

[englandism]

Gordon won't jump yet, he needs to reclaim more trad Tory values before Labour is ready for the punters.

The dead cow in Ipswich is not the only wee Highland beastie with blue tongue disease.

[powellite]

Totally agree with Christopher Blore@12:47. Winning for winning sake is all very well, but there really isn't much of a credible alternative. Quite frankly, there's no real reason to vote Conservative. However, the potential is there. Cameron has the personality, and the policies are there - let's nail our colours to the mast, concentrate on three main issues and hammer them home.

[Yet Another Anon]

I wonder if Brown will also follow Callaghan and sing a song at the conference?
Jim Callaghan more sort of recited it really, politicians trying vaudeville or usually end up falling foul of their efforts, listening to Gordon Brown now and who knows? Maybe he'll break out with Cole Porter's "Let's do it!" and call a General Election, I doubt it though!

[Bruges Group NG]

"Frit"

[Jake]

See through all the hype - Brown is a cautious man . He never went for Blair and just took it for 10 years .
There is NO reason why he should risk everything for a possible win - after all , once declared , all bets are off as to the winner , polls are useful but they aint the election results .

[B]

I do hope it isn't Oct 25, if only for the selfish reason that it's my birthday!!! ;)

[James Burdett]

"I do hope it isn't Oct 25, if only for the selfish reason that it's my birthday!!! ;)"

But just think what a good birthday present you could get!!

[Andrew Lilico]

Spring 2009. Let's try to get the Election fever going again from about February 2009. Until then, we should proceed calmly and in good order - not rushing selecting our candidates; not rushing to ill-considered policies or spending commitments; not rushing or panicking at all.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Well Andrew ,your £20 is not safe yet! If he doesn't call an election I'll look forward to paying you!

[Yet Another Anon]

25 October is the 153rd anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade - in the unlikely event the General Election was on that day I am sure however it turned out that the media will delight in making comparisons.

[Yet Another Anon]

From memory 1951 produced a small Conservative Majority of 21 of thereabouts
Conservative majority of 16, and in fact from the point of view of the Conservative Party the result was very decent as Labour got 48.8% of the vote compared to 48% of the vote for the Conservatives and allies. To this day Labour's 1951 performance rather ironically remains the highest proportion of those eligible to vote ever to vote for a particular party at a General Election, and at 13.98 million it was before 1992 also the highest total number of voters to vote for one party - due to the very high turnouts of the time, Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill were both hugely popular and respected figures.

[Ned]

Just a further thought on this - it may be that Brown's camp are pouring cold water on 25 October and an imminient dissolution in order to get the media to focus (at least to some degree) on the conference announcements.

I still reckon that date is not to be viewed as out of the question and an election could be called this week. When Labour ministers say that they are focusing on policy "this week", I think they mean "this week" as in during their conference (ending Thursday). Friday is beyond "this week" presently.

[Yet Another Anon]

it may be that Brown's camp are pouring cold water on 25 October and an imminient dissolution in order to get the media to focus (at least to some degree) on the conference announcements.
If the aim was to get media attention, it's hard to imagine anything that would get more attention than the announcement of the date of the General Election.

In fact media speculation over when the General Election will be is actually diverting attention away from what is going on at the Labour conference - so for example any protests on particular motions will not be noticed when otherwise they might have been a story.

The speculation is simply because there is a new Labour leader and after a spell of unpopularity in mid term rather a surprising long spell of apparently good media coverage and better election results for Labour and a crisis in the Conservative leadership. If there wasn't then there wouldn't be such speculation.

[Letters From A Tory]

November 1st would still fit quite nicely with Gordon Brown, but it would mean that the Conservative conference could still mess his plans up.

[Patriot]

Still begs the question - he's guaranteed the job until 2010 if he wants it, and then he can go for the next five. If he's as convinced of his own brilliance as I think he might be, he must be feeling that by 2010 or even 2009 everything is going to be coming up smelling of roses.

Why gamble everything now? What would it really buy him unless he knows for sure that things are going to get seriously bad in the next 24 months? (The economy? Iraq? Iran?)

[Yet Another Anon]

If he's as convinced of his own brilliance as I think he might be, he must be feeling that by 2010 or even 2009 everything is going to be coming up smelling of roses.
No PM is going to aim at going virtually full term, because if they do and something goes wrong they are stuck holding the election.

Alistair Darling has already announced that the Pre Budget Report will be held in October, surely this would make an October General Election impractical as the Pre Budget Report would then have to be rescheduled and the media would say it had been moved for political rather than economic reasons.

This would mean that unless it was moved, a snap election couldn't occur until at least mid November which would be unusual, even though the Pre Budget Report would have benefits for Labour in launching the campaign - in the past Budgets have been used to launch an election. But of course from November through to April there are strong risks of the weather disrupting voting and counting, for practical reasons apart from anything else it seems unlikely it would be before the 2008 Local Elections.

[James Maskell]

Ive been sure for some time that there will not be an election this side of Christmas. Brown wouldnt risk it. He has no personal acheivements he can speak of. He needs to have something he can use from his tenure as PM. The good money is on May 2009. If hes finding difficulty then he can delay till the end of the Parliament.

[Bluetongue Brown]

The new spin from Brown inner circle is a November election - it was being lapped up by all the media yesterday

Of course a November election wont happen, Brown is simply trying to wiggle his way out of his self-made deadline of next week, for the last possible date this year, 25th October

He's looked at the polls and fears a Trival Persuit legacy

[Yet Another Anon]

The trouble with the following week is that the clocks will have changed
The greater potential as time goes on for disruption from snow and ice of any election is the major factor, and people won't be happy if campaigning is going on over December as well in addition to hassle over Christmas - so even if Gordon Brown was eager to hold a snap election it would be difficult to do so.

So far as the clocks going back, I don't think that would have any effect - in fact with polls closing quite late it would add an hour of extra daylight in the evening. It might result in people voting more later on rather than early, but I doubt the difference between UTC+1 and UTC+0 would make any difference to turnout or how people voted.