Andrew Marr's three theories as General Election speculation hits fever pitch

22 May 2024, 14:16 | Updated: 22 May 2024, 15:27

"It may not go down well": Andrew Marr reacts to election rumours with James O'Brien

By Andrew Marr

@AndrewMarr9

I have not come across a morning like this one for election speculation. It is at a different level entirely.

It is shared by all the senior journalists [and] and an awful lot of senior MPs, from both major parties and indeed the SNP.

Everybody thinks something is going on. Now there’s very little hard evidence of this, but just to give you an example.

I’ve spoken to a Cabinet minister who thinks it’s not going to happen but really isn’t sure but doesn’t know what Cabinet is being called to talk about, but points out the King is in London.

I’ve also spoken to someone at the heart of Conservative Party election planning and the operation there, and I said ‘yes or no?’.

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He smiled at me, shook his head and walked on. I was quite surprised by that. Something’s happening.

Here’s a third theory about PMQs: if you’re Keir Starmer, and you go into the chamber and think ‘the man opposite me Rishi Sunak is about to call a general election’…you don’t give him the chance for that platform. You keep everything quiet and keep everything calm.

We just don’t know what’s going to happen today.

One other thing that I think is quite significant...interest rates are not likely to come down this summer and a lot of people think inflation is going to tick back up again, not enormously but a bit.

In which case, today might well be the best day for economic news the government is going to have before the General Election.

It would be a really bad act of political or party management to blow that news aside with election speculation, would it not?

In other news, the government could have stamped on this already, really hard and they have chosen, wisely or unwisely, not to.

Either this is going to happen or they’ve ruined what was going to be quite a good day for them.