The Tories are gearing up for an early election

The Chancellor’s timing hints at a snap poll but, as Theresa May knows, this would be a mighty gamble

In normal times, a Budget threatening the highest taxes in 50 years would go down badly with an exhausted public. But instead, last night, a poll put the Tories 13 points ahead of Labour. It’s quite remarkable: a government that has overseen the highest Covid death toll in Europe, the worst economic damage in the G7 and the strictest lockdown in the developed world has still ended up with gravitydefying ratings.

It will again raise a question that is being increasingly heard in Tory circles: might there be a case for an early election?

When Boris Johnson won his majority a year ago, the idea was to stretch out his term for the full five years. But among Tories who talk about the next election, a new date is being mentioned: May 2023. As ever, this is guesswork on the part of ministers.

No formal decision has been made, and none is expected. But soon, the law will change to restore the power of the Prime Minister to call an election any time he likes, so the question presents itself. And the calculation is changing.

The norm, in Britain, was four-year parliaments – dragged out to five years only when a doomed Prime Minister clings on in the hope of something turning up (Callaghan, Major, Brown). The madness of 2019 gave us a winter election: voters would not thank Johnson for another one. Spring is the norm. So this leaves two realistic options: go to the polls after three-anda-half years, or four-and-a-half ?

Just after the general election, the longer time frame looked best. A “levelling-up” agenda was promised, with roads and railways built in the north of England. Such projects need time to bear fruit. When the pandemic struck, it was argued that 2024 would give enough time for the job of social repair to be complete – and for memories of shambolic lockdowns to fade. So for various reasons, time was the Tories’ friend. Or so it seemed then.

But the second wave has changed all that, having doubled the Covid bill to a crippling £350 billion. So we can forget about quickly repairing the lockdown damage and moving on: the costs will now dominate Budgets for the rest of the decade, if not longer. The austerity that Johnson has promised not to repeat now looks unavoidable, with plans to spend £17 billion less on public services than was envisaged this time last year. Hardly the formula on which elections are won.

But the Sunak Budget – which can be summarised as “spend now, pay nothing until 2023” – could have been designed for an election held in the May of that year. It is divided into Biblical-style fat years – the splurge now – and then the lean years, coming in the form of huge tax rises that will continue for the foreseeable.

Until May 2023, the experience of most people will be of economic boom and retail therapy. The economy is expected to surge 7.3 per cent next year, a post-war high, driven by a nation of frustrated shoppers who take two years to spend their lockdown savings. If the recovery goes better than predicted (as Sunak privately expects), the full tax rises starting in April 2023 might not be needed at all.

But delay the election until May 2024 and the post-retail glow fades. As will the growth: it’s projected to be 1.9 per cent that year. And now there’s a new argument: the Tories want the vaccine project to still be in voters’ minds. This is what seems to be driving the opinion polls now: a success that is, increasingly, supplanting the memories of failure.

The other politician currently working out very well for the Tories is Sir Keir Starmer. He might have succeeded in purging Corbynites from his party but he’s struggling to land any blows on a Conservative government that has presented all too many targets.

His big Labour relaunch speech last month was a non-event, and Tories are struck by the vacuum that exists where the Opposition ought to be. There’s now talk of fighting an election before Labour tires of him.

Nicola Sturgeon is, by far, the bigger threat to Johnson – especially if she wins a majority in May and starts to demand a second independence referendum. The No10 strategy is changing.

Rather than reject her request outright – which would look like running scared – the reply will be: “Not yet, this isn’t quite the right time.” This strategy may be difficult to sustain for four solid years. But if an early election causes the SNP to lose seats in Westminster, as happened in 2017, it may relieve the pressure. The final factor at play is one only being whispered on the Tory benches: that an early election could mean an early departure for the Prime Minister. He could fight another, then hand over. He’d go down as the man who won a referendum and two elections, completed Brexit and handled a pandemic, escaped death and led his country into a vaccination miracle. And go out on a high – leaving behind him worries about how to raise enough money to redecorate his house.

If anything, the question is whether he can leave an election as late as May 2023. Sunak’s tax rises certainly will be biting by then – and there may be difficult questions about whether re-elected Tories would offer anything other than sweat, tears and tax.

Hopes of a decent recovery very much depend on the ability to exit lockdown and make proper use of the vaccination success. There’s a very real possibility of this being botched. The risk that travel and workplace restrictions last long after the virus is a serious threat – in which case there may be no boom on which to capitalise.

Today’s opinion polls could be seen as proof that the vaccine miracle has restored the nation’s confidence. Or just proof that people like extra spending, several more months of furlough money, various tax breaks and the day of fiscal reckoning being pushed ever-further into the distance. The Sunak plan, with austerity starting in April 2023, may well seem less attractive nearer the time.

As Theresa May can attest, an early election is always a gamble. The question is whether holding an election midway through the tax rises would be a bigger gamble still.