When Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer deliver their New Year messages to the nation next week, both will set out their visions for Britain in the secure knowledge that 2024 is the year of the general election.
In fact, thanks to a string of by-elections, local elections, mayoral elections and a general election, the political story of 2024 will centre on whether the Tory and Labour leaders can navigate a series of unexploded bombs both at the ballot box and on the economy. One misstep in the minefield, and Sunak’s “narrow path” to victory will be blown away. But Starmer too faces tricky decisions, even if he wins the keys to No 10.
With polls showing that the cost of living crisis is still by far the public’s number one priority, next month will instantly highlight the economic challenge facing the Government.
On New Year’s Day itself, energy bills will spike thanks to the combination of a higher price cap and the withdrawal of state help. That hit to household incomes is precisely why Jeremy Hunt has timed his National Insurance cuts for 6 January, rather than leave them to the spring.
Yet the Chancellor knows that it will be February when he and Sunak have to make possibly their biggest calls of the year – how much to start giving away in a March Budget, and whether to stick to their current plan for an October election. To keep their options open for a May election, both parties will have to start work in February on their manifestos.
A key date pencilled in Treasury diaries is 15 February, when the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is due to publish its estimate of GDP for the final three months of 2023. If it is a negative figure, after the zero growth of the previous quarter, Sunak will have failed one of his “five pledges” to grow the economy this year.
A negative figure would also heighten fears of a technical recession (defined as two successive quarters of negative growth) for the spring, putting at risk Sunak’s hopes of “green shoots” of an economic optimism needed to warn voters that Labour could ruin a fragile recovery.
As it happens, February is also the time when Tory by-election blues may resurface, as Wellingborough goes to the polls following the suspension of MP Peter Bone for bullying and sexual misconduct. A further recall petition for Blackpool South MP Scott Benton (suspended for breaking lobbying rules) is expected to be reaching its climax that month too, possibly triggering another by-election in April. In short, the advent calendar of chaos of late 2023 could easily continue early next year.
Given all the negatives, there is a surprising mood of defiance in the Tory leadership, however. A Downing Street insider said that 2024 will be the year when voters are faced with a “forced choice” of a Sunak or Starmer government, rather than just taking “free hits” at the government.
“Whenever Labour have popped their heads over the parapet, like when Starmer talked about taking more migrants from the EU, we’ve shown they’re beatable,” they said. “You’ll get a lot more of that as they have to show their hand.”
One No 10 insider tells me that the “undecided” voters are a cause for hope. “The number of ‘don’t knows’ right now is 20 per cent, that’s way higher than the eight or nine per cent that’s normal at this stage before an election. They’re the people we need.”
One Cabinet minister, who won their seat from Labour, tells me: “I doorknock every week and not a single person in my seat has told me anything remotely resembling ‘oh I like Keir Starmer’ or ‘I like Labour’. And don’t believe this stuff that the voters don’t tell you anything. I remember from 1992 to 1997 they weren’t afraid of telling us they were voting for Blair.”
Right now, the battle over election timing within Sunak’s team is being won by those who want to “go long”, rather than those who are prepared to “spring a surprise in Spring”. From his New Year press conference through to every appearance he makes in the spring, he will be constantly asked when the election will be, with increasing volume.
One incentive for holding an election on 2 May would be that it coincides with the Mayoral and local elections due that day, reducing costs, boosting turnout and avoiding the problem of poor local results setting the narrative for a later general election.
But perhaps the biggest driver is a fear that the number of small boats crossing the English channel will rise again this summer. Conversely, those who argue for a later date point out there would be more time to get that all-important “money shot” of a plane of migrants taking off for Rwanda – to prove the Government was at least “doing something” to tackle the problem.
Labour estimates that a 2 May election would mean parliament would have to be dissolved by 20 March at the latest, which is why a tax-cutting Budget in early March will trigger intense speculation about polling dates.
Many Tory backbenchers are hoping to follow up January’s National Insurance cuts with a full-blooded income tax cut in the Budget, together with increases in the higher rate threshold and possible changes to inheritance tax.
If wages keep exceeding prices as they have done recently, the doom coud lift, ministers believe. The Chancellor recently told a group of special advisers that he endorsed the rough rule-of-thumb proposed by Times columnist, Danny Finkelstein: if real take home pay is going up in the six months before polling day, governments normally win.
Unfortunately for the Conservatives, much higher mortgage rates are among the economic bombs primed to go off in 2024. I’m told Keir Starmer has personally been struck by how many Tory-to-Labour “switchers” he has met on the doorstep directly cite their mortgage costs.
Of course, the graph that will most preoccupy both No 10 and Labour HQ is the polling gap between the two main parties. Real votes, rather than mere polls, will be in evidence in May’s local and mayoral elections too.
The Conservatives believe that if Andy Street can hang on in the West Midlands metro mayoralty, building on the back of 2022’s rare bright spot of Tory council holds in the region (and Labour-run Birmingham council’s near bankruptcy), they will be in a strong position for later in the year. If he loses, talk of a nightmare election ahead will intensify.
Sadiq Khan’s London mayoral race will be closely watched too for any signs that the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) controversy that powered the Tory victory in the Uxbridge by-election is repeated again.
Those MPs hoping for an autumn election believe that Thursday 24 October is the most likely date, mainly because that will give Sunak exactly two years in office even if he loses (he became PM on 25 October, 2022, and would be called to the Palace to resign formally on Friday, 25 October, 2024).
Many in both parties believe that it’s only in the final three weeks before polling day that most voters pay any real attention and are up for grabs in a way polls fail to capture.
Starmer, however, does have his own challenges in 2024. He has to turn his “five missions” into something more voter-friendly and has to draft detailed policies in key areas (Wes Streeting has admitted a long term funding package for social care is not yet ready).
So-called “access talks” between Labour shadow teams and the civil service are expected to start in January or February, allowing Whitehall to be ready from Day One of an incoming government. Starmer believes that the talks will act as a forced deadline to help him order shadow teams to come up with some policies.
One big target for the Tories is Labour’s borrowing fuelled £28bn a year “green prosperity plan”. But Rachel Reeves’ team will stress that it is unlikely to be met until later in a Parliament, that the cost will be lower because the Tories are already doing some net zero investment (funded by borrowing) and that everything is subject to her rule to get debt falling.
Labour has nerves of its own to contend with too. Keir Starmer constantly tells his top team to behave as if they were five points behind in the polls and to guard against complacency.
And to ram home the message, his Campaign Director Morgan McSweeney showed the Shadow Cabinet earlier this month a presentation with graphs of six different elections from around the world. The graphs showed where one party was in front until their election campaign began – and then the lead reversed.
Both parties are also aware that one election looms over even the UK election: the Presidential election due in November next year. For Sunak’s team, it is looking ominous that even a booming economy with drastically lower inflation is not producing any polling upside for Joe Biden.
Yet for Labour too, there are lessons. Democratic party strategists recently ditched the phrase “Bidenomics” – pumping cash into clean tech to secure jobs – because it wasn’t cutting through with voters who simply don’t feel any richer yet. The UK not only lacks the firepower the US has to run a deficit to fuel such a stimulus, Reeves’ “securonomics” – a Biden-style focus on domestic companies – may prove even more of a mouthful with the public.
Even if Labour wins a big majority, and looks on with glee at the prospect of a Tory leadership election that pushes its opponents further from the mainstream, Starmer faces lots of unexploded bombs of his own in government next winter – from immigration to a stagnant economy to inherited plans to squeeze public spending.
Most of all, voter volatility is what worries Starmer’s senior team most. “The electorate giveth and the electorate taketh away,” is how one old hand puts it. A big majority doesn’t guarantee 10 years in office any more. And with Britons less likely than ever before to have strong party allegiances, that’s a double-edged sword for Labour.
If Starmer can bounce his party back from an historic defeat to a landslide victory in just four years, the Conservatives (who have a habit of reinventing themselves) will be hoping they can do the same too. That’s why 2024 will be a hell of a ride for both parties and the voters – from January right through to December. We should all buckle up.
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