October Election and Rachel Reeves ‘Securenomics’ What’s been going on in Westminster the last few days?

A ‘slip of the tongue’ from Chancellor Jeremy Hunt when speaking to the Lords ‘Economic Affairs Committee’, suggests that the election will be held in October. Previous guesses for the election include 2^nd May, which is when local elections are taking place and even as late as December.

Sunak in January said that he was expecting to have an election in the second half of the year, this along with the announcement that he would be hosting the second European Political Community summit on the 18^th July, suggests that the election will be after this has taken place.

The European Political Community is a new organisation, proposed in 2022 by French President Emmanuel Macron. Countries included in these discussions aren’t limited to members of the European Union, including the Balkans, countries seeking to join the EU and those which have left.

Objectives of the community are to ‘foster political dialogue and cooperation’. This year will only be the second meeting to take place, last year 47 states were invited and 44 attended.

Polls from the 13^th March suggest a Labour win, with 44% of people saying they would vote for Labour, 20% Conservative, 14 % for Reform and 9% for Liberal Democrats.

On the same day as Hunt suggested the election would be held in October, Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer made a speech at the annual Mais Lecture. A speech that many chancellors, including Rishi Sunak, George Osborne and Gordon Brown have held before they took the position.

In this speech, she highlighted issues with the economy, these included, having weak investment; below 20% of GDP, which is lower than the other countries in the G7, regional differences and describing today as ‘living in an age of insecurity’.  

Reeves characterised policy changes made since 2010 as having two major failings; austerity and instability, emphasising that growth has to be built on stability, investment and reform.

Though no full policy commitments were made, forming closer relations with the European Union and striking a balance between the ‘energy transition and the real economic constraints we face’ were mentioned and come following Labour’s decision to scrap their Green Prosperity Plan.