The time was that the demise of the Crown – the monarch’s death, I mean, not the hopeful end of that tawdry TV horrorshow – entailed Parliament’s dissolution and the calling of a general election. Fortunately (for us) this is no longer the case. Even the most optimistic punter would not have fancied Tory chances last Autumn – whatever (ahem) over-zealous young commentators were idly speculating at the time.
Nonetheless, although the passing of Elizabeth II and the accession of Charles III has not been the British Meiji Restoration after which our Deputy Editor hankers, it has not been without political consequences. Today, I will hone in on one in particular: how the coronation’s timing might blunt the momentum of those Conservative MPs hoping to use the local election results to plot against Rishi Sunak.
I defer to our peerless Local Government Editor when it comes to reading the runes as to what the lay of the land will be after this year’s contest. But suffice it to say the base provided by the 2019 results (the last time these seats were contested) was poor for both the Tories and Labour – and likely to be better for the latter, and worse for the former, this time around.
Yet this year’s elections are scheduled (in England) for the 4th of May. As every stout-hearted monarchist amongst the ConHome readership knows, His Majesty’s Coronation is scheduled for the 6th of May. The House of Commons rises on the 3rd of May beforehand, and will not return until the 9th: the Tuesday after the blessed Monday the Prime Minister has given us for recovery as a Bank Holiday.
What this means in practice is that for the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday following the local elections, Tory MPs will be scattered across the country putting up red, white, and blue bunting, flipping burgers at street parties, and gorging themselves on coronation chicken and Victoria Sponge rather than watching the results come tumbling in. Any gloom will surely be dispelled by patriotic fervour and an occasional Bucks Fizz.
That, of course, is if anyone notices the aforementioned gains and losses. Six weeks out and our newspapers are already pumping out coverage. Come the week itself and it will be splashes and pull-outs galore. However dire the local elections might be for the Tories, the results will struggle for any attention against the backdrop of pomp and ceremony.
All this can only be good news for Number 10. Rightly or wrongly, local elections are a lightning rod for leadership speculation. Fidgety sources close to the Prince across the water have long been talking up May’s results as a flashpoint for action. Leaving aside whether they should be worrying about rather more pressing matters, coronation-mania will stall their momentum.
As The Guardian, that famously royal-obsessed paper, put it 70 years ago, “a royal event has the power to eclipse everything that normally occupies the public consciousness; to reduce all the most important transactions of…national politics to the second rank of interest; and to reach into a depth of collective emotion never touched by the business of governments.” Hear! Hear! Sunak cheers.
Any feel-good period will only last so long. In the age of WhatsApp, distance is not the barrier to scheming that it once was. Parliament returns on the Tuesday. Disgruntled Tory MPs will soon be able to swap stories of council woes, and make an injudicious claim or two to the baying hacks (hello lads!) in The Marquis of Granby.
Remember, the late Queen’s Jubilee was swiftly followed last year by Sir Graham Brady’s announcement that the required number of letters had been reached. But that was following weeks of speculation as to when a confidence vote might be held. In that instance, poor local election results only served to raise the temperature, rather than acting as a specific spur to action.
Sunak will be spared a weekend of newspaper headlines about plotting. All going well, a successful coronation will be added to Sturgeon’s defenestration, his international glad-handing, Windsor fudging, and the Budget’s reassuring tedium as another triumph for our not-so-new Prime Minister. The conspirators may have well be thought to have missed the boat.
So, the question arises. At what point does speculation about a leadership election turn into speculation about a general one? Stranger things, and all that.