 The Daily Telegraph, the Tories newspaper of choice, is reporting that we could be in line for an early general election. They quote Oliver Dowden, who has just been made co-chair of the Conservatives as telling staff, it's time to go to our offices and prepare for the next election. The working assumption inside number 10 is that Boris Johnson will go to the country in May or June 2024. The Telegraph understands he is also eyeing up a year earlier, so that would be May or June 2023. The rumours about an early election come as the Tories retake the lead in opinion polls. In a survey released today by YouGov, the Tories are up six points on last week to 39%, while Labour have stood still on 35%. I fought Karl Schoeman today who used to work for Corbyn, now works for Salvation, had a very interesting take on this. He said, this is now becoming fixed into the political weather unless Labour does something fundamental to change the cycle. When the Conservatives do something bad, Labour catches up for a few days, sits back and within days it's back to normal, normal being the Conservatives in the lead. Aaron, do you reckon we'll have an election earlier than it otherwise would have been? So, we're definitely going to have one by 2024 rumours now that it will be in 2023, and will it matter when it is in terms of who's going to be in a stronger position to win it? Such a hard question. Some of it is based on contingency. Gordon Brown looked at an early general election, then decided against it. Ultimately, that probably cost him winning the election. If you look at the economics right now, I think 2023 makes more sense than we're going to come out of them. We're going to go basically now into a mini-boom because obviously there's loads of pent-up demand in the global economy. You're seeing the supply chain issues, demand is outstripping supply. We can't find enough workers to do certain jobs, so wages are going up. Of course, that's going to lead to some price rises too. We're seeing inflation for basic commodities, but what you're going to see is quite a rare thing in the next 12 months, which is lots of new jobs, wage increases, lots of final demand for the consumer. That's kind of rare that all coming together. I think it would make sense to call an election sooner rather than later. Of course, you want to have COVID well and truly behind you. I personally don't think COVID is going to be well and truly behind us by, say, next spring. I think it's very possible this winter goes very, very badly wrong. It might not. We were saying by now we might have 100,000 new cases a day. Turns out it's about 35,000. I want to be wrong, but I think there's a major possibility that the government have got this very, very, very badly wrong again this winter, just like last year. Not as bad, but bad, pretty bad. The ceiling is much lower because, of course, the majority of the adult population has been vaccinated, but it still could be very, very bad. I think 2023 sounds reasonable. You're looking at Starmer. Maybe you want them to carry on as long as possible because you just want the labor part to tear itself apart. Then you've also got the issues of Scotland of Wales. Hard one. I think 2023 is the most reasonable one, however. I think that's the most sensible. Have, let's say, 18 months of normality post COVID and this little mini economic boom. That would work. Gordon Brown postponed an election in 2007. I think it was because he got cold feet about different taxes which are being proposed. Then, obviously, the financial crisis happened and labor would screwed after that. It could be that Boris Johnson says, I'll hold off till 2024 and then we get another massive economic crisis which he wasn't foreseeing. Something which is potentially more guessable, I suppose, in terms of what it will have impact on is the internal politics of the Labor Party. Because if we think at this point, odds are the conservatives are going to win the next general election. It could be quite significant whether or not Keir Starmer and David Evans have 18 months to reshape the Labor Party in their image or whether they have two and a half years. There might be people in Labor HQ who are really interested in what timetable they are being given to transform the Labor Party. Potentially, if there hadn't been a snap election in 2019, Corbyn and Jenny Formby would have been able to transform the Labor Party to a greater degree so that it couldn't just get retaken by the right and then stitch it up to basically expel anyone they didn't like. It could be that this snap election, if it does happen, undermines Keir Starmer's attempt to lock out the left forever. There's a nice symmetry there, but I don't think Keir Starmer's going anywhere. I think Keir Starmer could be absolutely decimated and I think he could do far worse than 2019 and he'd still stay in place. What's going to change? What would matter is decisively Unison GMB, the trade unions? The media coverage is arse. Of course, it could be that the defeat is so big and I don't think it would be. I think Labor would, generally speaking, keep the same as what they got, 32% probably more. Of course, the problem is where is that going to come from? You could see them losing a few seats in the Northeast. You could see them losing a few more seats in the West Midlands. I think Labor could get 32%, 33%. Same as last time, maybe even a bit better. Actually, they don't pick any seats up in Scotland. They don't pick any seats up in Wales, particularly with boundary changes. They'll actually lose seats regardless of performance, really. They'll lose seats in the West Midlands and in the Northeast. The real net beneficiaries in terms of vote share, not necessarily seats, but vote share, would be the Lib Dems in the South of England. Under those conditions, I struggled to see how he would stay on, but I think his ambition would be to stay on. I think the people around him would very predictably say, well, Neil Kinnock had two bites of the cherry. Jeremy Corbyn had two bites of the cherry. Well, he had the second go because 2017 was a success. I suppose for Stammer, if he gets anything above 32%, he can say, well, I've earned my opportunities to stay on. I think that's a fair thing to say. I wouldn't agree with it. I think ultimately it comes down to seats. If he loses seats and the vote share stays the same, I think he has to go. Who's going to push him, Michael? Who's going to push him? John McDonald? The Guardian newspaper? Unison, the trade union? No. I don't know what's going to happen. Members are going to leave? He wants members to leave. It's a really tough one to predict. I think ultimately it's going to come down to, if he's embarrassed, yes, you will need to go. Also, fundamentally, the party runs out of money. If the big donors don't come back, and the big donors aren't going to come back if the party is clearly in a downward spin even after 2019, and you don't have the members, and trade unions recognize that this isn't really where they are maximizing resources, then I think he probably would be pushed out. Also, ultimately, MPs are not going to back a guy who they think are making them particularly vulnerable. If more and more MPs think he's going to lose their seats at the next time of asking, yes, he'll go. I think they're probably planning to lose the next election. I think that is the plan, and he'll be staying in place. If he did lose a general election, I think John McDonald and the socialist campaign group would mount a challenge. Potentially, if he just lost an election as well, you would be able to get some other soft left MPs in and trigger a leadership election. It's not impossible that he would be toppled. I don't think he would resign of his own accord, but you could imagine the situations where a leadership challenge happens, and it will depend to what degree Evans and Starmer have, by that point in time, managed to stitch up the internal politics of the Labour Party so that a left-winger can't possibly win again. I imagine that's going to be the real story about this conference and next year's conference, is them making sure that if and when Keir Starmer loses, if there is to be a challenge, he will either win or be replaced by someone from the same wing of the party.