It would be “truly astonishing” if the Conservatives win on July 4, Mark Garnett, a politics professor at Lancaster University, told Sputnik. Sunak hopes an early election will minimise his party's losses, “banking on good economic news” like falling inflation, the academic noted.
“Calling the election for July suggests he has given up hope that other things could improve between now and the end of 2024,” Garnett said.
The Tories will leave the UK “with very serious economic problems, but also with most voters feeling disillusioned with the political process.”
The view “in all wings of politics” is that the government “has failed the country,” Alistair Jones, associate politics professor at De Montfort University, told Sputnik.
There is “dissatisfaction” with the Tories, while solutions “being proposed by the opposition parties do not necessarily encourage much enthusiasm either.”
The campaign will be “borderline rude and contentious,” he added, as both parties “have got their own agendas.”
Sunak is hoping to cash in on small gains, gambling on a short term economic bounce, his Rwanda scheme for relocating migrants or the ban on smoking.
“There are fears that there's other bad news on the way, but that won't happen till after the summer and hence the early general election.”
No matter what Labour claims it wants to change, defence, foreign policy will likely see “a degree of continuity,” with only “subtle changes,” Jones noted. Labour, like other parties, will pledge change after seeing “what the Conservative Party has done or has failed to do, and the extent to which the Conservative Party may have been gaslighting the public over a number of issues.”
But there is a “huge caveat” to their manifesto, as it “boils down to money. How much money is there going to be available to do things?” asked Jones.