What Does The Spring Budget Tell Us About When An Election Could Be Called?

Economists and political scientists have suggested the Spring Budget package was so "small scale" it did not indicate the government was about to go to the polls.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt told MPs in the House of Commons on Wednesday that Government was sticking to its plan for "long term growth". He announced a slew of measures including a two per cent cut to National Insurance contributions, the abolition of the "non-dom" tax regime, and the introduction of a vape tax.

The Conservatives have been significantly behind Labour in the polls for more than a year, and at the moment, are widely expected to lose the next general election. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak must call a vote before the end of this year and is likely to want to wait for a boost in his party's popularity before he does. This week's Spring Budget was viewed by many – particularly tax-cut-hungry Tories – as a key opportunity to persuade the public to give the current Government another chance. 

But Conservative MPs found the Chancellor's Budget underwhelming and doubted it would dramatically improve the party's election performance. "I'm not sure it will shift the dial," said one Tory MP, who had criticised the Government for "switching taxes around" in the Budget.

Andrew Goodwin, Chief UK Economist at Oxford Economics, told PoliticsHome there were too few announcements which would strike a chord with voters to strongly suggest Government was poised to call an election imminently. 

“The package was so small-scale that it doesn’t make much difference to the probability of an early election," he said. "The experience of the previous National Insurance Contributions (NICs) cut announced in the Autumn Statement was that it simply didn’t cut through with voters, so