Apart from the obvious clearing of the legislative decks, Brown appears to be hoping that the economy will have started to turn – and June would allow a reckless giveaway budget to hit pay packets before the PSBR figures begin to show up optimism of his forecasts.

Also, I notice that he is planning to bring troops home from Iraq before June – lancing the Iraq war boil once and for all.

Finally, we should not ignore the fact that Labour are practically bankrupt, so combining three elections into one is financially attractive.

If he does not go in June, then he would need to wait until October, and possibly be forced into 2010 – especially if the County / Euro elections prove a disaster.

There is an outside chance of Brown opting for March/April 2009, but he would ned to have seen several months of good polls before taking teh risk. May is not really an option having ordered the County Councils be deferred from the original date.

One matter should be of particular if there is a 2009 election. It is bad enough, in my view very bad, having General and local elections all on the same day. It would be absolutely appalling having three elections, local, general and European. It would be a recipe for chaos and spoilt votes, particularly given the large number of postal votes (regular readers will know this is another of my psephological complaints): there is no friendly polling officer present to see that the voter does not put papers in the wrong envelope. One result is that voting may be all over the place, not least because ordinary electors are unable to diesentangle the many issues that should really be debated.

Ad hoc introduction of American-style multiple office voting could be used by opposition parties at the election to remind voters of issues that might otherwise have gone away about how Labour treated democracy during the parliament. We comment on this site on ongoing points, but the actual results of the next election will as always be affected by matters that capture public attention during the campaign (these days, providing they are raised close to the first real pollling day, the one on which postal ballot papers drop on the doormats).

Could that be down to caution by Brown, ruling out an early election, or amongst pollsters awaiting further evidence ?

We are working class in this household and I can assure everyone that all 5 of us cannot wait for NuLabour to be soundly thrashed at the next GE.

I notice some of you who say the Conservatives favout the rich, but surely without rich people we would have no jobs to go to.

There are many many reasons why NuLabour WILL lose the next GE, the economy is just one.

We in this household all intend to vote Conservative to bring sanity and pride back to our Country.