COULD a cleverly chosen date for the election swing it for Rishi Sunak? It’s unlikely he’s got any other brilliant strategies, so here are some days he should keep in mind.
New Year’s Eve
It’s cold, it’s dark, it’ll probably be raining and everyone is completely disengaged from politics because they’ve spent the last week getting pissed and stuffing their faces. Many will be busy with a party they don’t want to go to in the evening. The only people who’ll venture out to vote will be diehard fanatics, and the Tories have got more of those than anyone else so they might just squeak in.
May Bank Holiday
A potentially warm and sunny day when everyone is off work might not seem like the ideal day for Sunak to open the polls. However, if he’s factored in that a large amount of the population will be drinking from 11am it might not be such a bad idea. Drunk people do stupid things, like voting Socialist Alternative for a laugh, which could split the Labour vote and get him a second term.
Euros final if England make it
Yes, a Sunday in July is an odd day for an election, but if England are in the final of the Euros, nobody will be thinking about voting apart from the aforementioned Tory loyalists, which will give Sunak an edge. However, this relies on England making it to the final and not getting knocked out as soon as they play a half-decent team, which they have a habit of doing.
The Saturday of Glastonbury
When and where do you find a vast amount of Labour voters corralled together in one place? At Glastonbury on the Saturday. Whether they’re crusty old Trots or Islington’s metropolitan elite, they’ll all be crushed in a crowd watching Shania Twain and nowhere near a ballot box, making it an easy win for Rishi. Also elderly Tory voters will see the Glasto crowd having fun on TV and vote in record numbers to make life worse for young people out of pure spite.
September 31st
You can’t lose an election if you hold it on a day that doesn’t exist. Nobody knows how many days each month has, so the UK will go to bed on September 30th ready to vote the next day and wake up on October 1st with the Conservatives still in power. We’re used to them endlessly somehow winning despite a complete lack of public enthusiasm, so nobody will bat an eyelid.
Never
Ultimately, the only way Rishi Sunak can avoid humiliation is if the election never takes place. This will be tricky because he’ll have to do something drastic like taking a leaf out of the Nazis’ book and ban all other political parties. Many Conservative MPs are right-wing nutters and will be fully in favour of this, resulting in him still being in power in 2050, still calling the leader of the opposition ‘Captain Hindsight’ and struggling to get his Rwanda scheme to work.
