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Speculation about speculation

  • Posted by Martin Bright
  • 25 November 2008

Rumours of a June election just won't go away. But who is talking up a 2009 poll?

Some interesting speculation from the Spectator's boy wonder, James Forsyth, about the Brownites pushing for a 2009 election.

Forsyth quotes from Anne McElvoy's front page story from Friday's Evening Standard. McElvoy reports a source from the Brown camp telling her: "He would be mad not to think about it."

Forsyth's theory is that the source is Geoffrey Robinson, the co-owner of this magazine, who is interviewed by McElvoy in the same issue of the Standard. Who knows, he may be right?

Ingeniously, Forsyth links this piece of informed speculation to my speculation in last week's New Statesman. I quoted a former Cabinet minister who spent a long time at the Treasury saying: "Gordon has to get the Obama visit out of the way then call an election. There really is no other option." But Geoffrey Robinson was never in the Cabinet, so it can't be him.

Election fever. There's a lot of it about.

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About the writer

Martin Bright

Martin Bright began his journalistic career writing in very simple English for a magazine aimed at French school children. This experience has informed his style ever since. He worked for the BBC World Service, and The Guardian before joining the Observer as Education Correspondent. He went on to become Home Affairs Editor before becoming the New Statesman's political editor in 2005.

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