Wander through Parliament at the moment, and there is one issue many MPs want to discuss: is there going to be an early general election?<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has nearly three years to go before he has to call an election and he has repeatedly and categorically ruled out going to the country early.<\/p>\n
But the discussion persists – and many think it is a real possibility.<\/p>\n
After Wednesday’s Budget, that talk has only increased.<\/p>\n
As one former Labour minister puts it: “Why would you sprinkle round a few politically smart (albeit small) giveaways now but delay all the really tough and unpopular decisions on welfare and defence<\/a> to an autumn spending review if you weren’t creating a window for a spring election?”<\/p>\n Others have also suggested to the BBC that Chancellor John Healey’s plans felt like a pre-election programme.<\/p>\n They argue the Budget contained voter-friendly measures on the cost of living, such as \u00a3100 help for many with energy bills<\/a> and extending VAT cuts on electricity bills. Young voters are to be offered help on to the housing ladder, through the Your First Home scheme<\/a>.<\/p>\n Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has questioned why some-voter friendly measures announced by Healey will only be in place until the summer. <\/p>\n Could it be, she suggests, that the prime minister plans to go to the country before these measures run out? <\/p>\n (The counter-argument to this is that household energy pressures are less severe in the summer.)<\/p>\n Some MPs also point out the prime minister is popular at the moment and Labour is leading in most polls. <\/p>\n Reform, who had led the polls for some time, have had a difficult few months. <\/p>\n Will things ever look better for Burnham, they ask.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wander through Parliament at the moment, and there is one issue many MPs want to discuss: is there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-819409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}