When should we have an election?

by Ed Bowsher on 22 May 2009  |  6 comments
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Ed Bowsher thinks the election should come in October.

There was lots of discussion on last night's 'Question Time' about when we should have an election. Most people were pushing for an immediate poll but the government minister (Ben Bradshaw) saw things differently. No surprise there. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.....

But it got me thinking. Should we have an election next month?

Well, I can understand that most British people are absolutely furious. I'm angry too. Plenty of MPs have behaved dreadfully. But I don't think we should have an election in June. That's because we still don't have all the information on MPs' expenses - as I understand it, the 'Telegraph' is still combing through documents, and we haven't seen the official release of documents which is due in July.

I reckon that voters should have all the facts available before they make their final decision, and they should have a few weeks to think about things too. So October feels about right to me.

I actually think the strongest argument for a June election is nothing to do with expenses. It's the economy. We're in a dreadful economic pickle and we need a strong government that can make difficult decisions. Gordon Brown's government gets weaker by the day and I fear we're now going to experience a year of policy paralysis until the rules force Brown to finally call an election for June 2010.

But overall, I'd go for October. Then we could have an election that could conclusively deal with the expenses issue. After that, we could move on to the economy, the environment, Islamic terrorism, nuclear proliferation, free trade and a zillion other serious issues that need attention.