Yet more vague rumours about a possible snap election sometime soon after the Thane of Fife ascends to his rightful place as leader of the Labour Party (oh and P.M as well) are doing the rounds, and while many of the arguments that accompany said rumours are just absurd*, the idea of a new P.M calling a snap election a few months after kissing hands is hardly a new or especially shocking thing.
I don’t personally see the point in Brown calling a snap election as, unlike Harold Wilson in ‘66 or ‘74, he will have a solid enough majority in the Commons to get through pretty much any legislative programme that pleases him (that’s presuming he has a better relationship with the backbenchers than Blair does, which would hardly be a tricky thing to do). Arguments about “mandates” and so on are, in the end, neither here nor there; the point of politics at this level is (or at least should be) to govern and to legislate, not to risk everything for the sake of personal glory.
*Especially this, bizarre, nonsense:
“He’s off. Someone new is coming. They need a mandate”
Is English even his first language?
