Downing Street

• After weeks of speculation, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he is “working on the assumption” that a general election will take place in the second half of this year.
• That’s just a few months before the latest possible date of January 28 2025.
• The choice of an autumn election does make sense for Sunak and the Conservatives.

Why ‘autumn’ means ‘October’

• If an election is held in the autumn, October would seem the most likely month if history is anything to go by.
• Historically, turnout in October elections has been similar to turnout in spring elections – and turnout is a major factor for the Conservatives.
• Age is now the most significant predictor of voting behaviour in UK general elections and age is linked to turnout.
• The 18-24 group is most likely to vote Labour but least likely to vote overall so an October vote is again a sound move.

A clash with the US election

• An October election would mean the UK vote would take place just weeks ahead of the US election on November 5.
• The prospect of two of the world’s leading democracies going to the polls within weeks of each other is an exciting one for election enthusiasts.

Don’t rule out a spring election yet

• Following the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, the choice of election date lies in the hands of the prime minister.
• It would therefore be unwise to rule out a spring election, even after Sunak’s heavy hint.
• Sunak’s words do leave the door open for a spring election, as “working assumptions” can easily be changed.

Gemma Loomes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• But actually delivering on those promises requires another kind of political operative: staffers.
• These taxpayer-funded employees or advisers play crucial roles, and yet they are often mismanaged.
• Staffers can be the hidden heroes – or villains – of the political process.

Proper recruitment processes

• If I could whisper in someone’s ear into the future, I’d say really take that time on organisation.
• As one UK staffer explained:
  Parties need to give a lot more thought to year-round recruitment and talent identification, because you can’t just suddenly turn up at Downing Street and put a new machine together.
• Parties need to give a lot more thought to year-round recruitment and talent identification, because you can’t just suddenly turn up at Downing Street and put a new machine together.
• Scouting talent means having initial conversations followed by professional selection processes.

Managing the political workplace

• Those likely to be involved in managing staff need to be trained on best practice within a political workplace.
• They also need help with managing the never-ending workload, identifying priorities and where best to focus their time.
• Maintaining morale is a big part of political management […] things get bad and can get dark in offices.

Orientation and training

• Because there is often a lack of human resource management infrastructure for political staffers, parties need effective staff training systems.
• I remember walking into the office on the first day after the prime minister was sworn in, and it was empty.
• Bespoke training programmes relevant to specific roles need to be created.
• Read more:
  Why political staffers are vulnerable to sexual misconduct — and little is done to stop it

One community

• Finally, all political staffers need to be seen as one community, regardless of which office they work in.
• Anyone serious about becoming prime minister or seeking political office should start thinking about those hidden heroes – political staffers – before an election, not after it.

• The “unsinkable” ship that sunk on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic in 1912 after colliding with an iceberg is arguably the world’s most well-known boat.
• The disaster inspired songs and multiple films in the twentieth century, including James Cameron’s 1997 epic romance, which long reigned as the highest-grossing film of all time.
• More recently, Titanic exhibitions that invite visitors to examine relics and explore the ship’s recreated rooms have attracted huge crowds in New York, Seville and Hong Kong.

Opulence and immigrants

• The first is its opulence.
• The White Start Line that built the Titanic advertised the ship as the most luxurious ever to set sail.
• If their ilk were the only people on board the Titanic, the ship would arguably have faded quickly from memory.

The power of the sea

• At the bottom of the Atlantic, it serves as a visceral reminder of the indomitable sea’s awesome power.
• The same two factors - the excess of the voyage, and its defeat by the sea – are now driving the current global interest in the Titan submersible disaster.
• And then there is the intriguing mystery and power of the sea.

The limits of human knowledge

• The site allows viewers to scroll from the sea surface to the sea floor, diving down past images of various marine animals that inhabit different oceanic depths.
• At 114 metres is an orca, and 332m marks the the deepest depth a human has ever reached using SCUBA gear.
• As the sea seems to have swallowed yet another ship, we are reminded of limits of human knowledge and mastery over the ocean.

• Former leader and former first minister Nicola Sturgeon had already described the events of the past few months as beyond her “worst nightmares” – and that was before she was arrested.
• Although Sturgeon was subsequently released without charge pending further investigations, opinion can hardly be divided on the state of that reputation now.

Chaos without a cost?

• The answer, judging by the graph below, is: almost unaffected.
• So the pair of columns on the far right in each cluster shows what has happened since that resignation.
• The SNP is down just two percentage points in both Westminster and Holyrood vote intention polls.

Stubborn support for independence

• Support for independence is basically unchanged since Sturgeon’s resignation.
• There was an upturn in support for independence in the autumn of 2022, which might be termed “the Liz Truss dividend” and the downturn that followed was in large part the unwinding of that effect (possibly aggravated by the unpopularity of the SNP’s gender recognition legislation).
• This tendency for independence support to be about what happens in London rather than Edinburgh is visible from other angles, too.

How Yes keeps the SNP afloat

• At every election since 2014, the overwhelming majority of those with a Yes vote intention cast at least one ballot for the SNP.
• This is why the overall level of SNP support is lowest in the middle cluster in the graph above.
• Even with a viable alternative Yes party, though, and even after the SNP’s annus horribilis so far, still at least two in three independence supporters would cast an SNP list vote.
• If Yes will keep the SNP afloat, will it also keep Labour at bay – maybe even denying Labour leader Keir Starmer a majority – in the upcoming general election?