Dan Hodges on how Kemi can stop Burnham calling and winning a snap election

Dan Hodges has a very interesting piece in the Daily Mail on the likelihood of Andy Burnham calling and winning a general election in the spring - and how Kemi Badenoch may by the only person who can stop him.

Hodges points out the similarities to the position just after Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, when he nearly called a snap election which he might well have won - and didn't because David Cameron and George Osborn's policy of raising the Inheritance tax threshold so that "only millionaires should pay inheritance tax" was cutting through.

(By the way, when Cameron and Osborne gained office in coalition with the Liberal Democrats and in a very different fiscal climate three years later, their coalition partners would not agree to the full implementation of this promise, but they did manage to introduce a property-specific allowance that allowed qualifying married couples to reach a £1 million tax-free threshold.)

The Present Prime minister, Andy Burnham, was a member of Brown's cabinet in 2007 and Dan Hodges writes,

"Burnham remembers well the moment Brown hesitated – and lost. A member of that administration, he was subsequently asked what he thought about that decision. ‘Momentum is a curious thing in politics,’ he reflected. 

There is no doubt in my mind that this is the reason Burnham has been very careful not to repeat Brown's mistake of letting speculation abut an early election get out of control.

Hodges thinks that the one thing which might stop Burnham calling and winning a spring election is a Conservative recovery based on some clear policies announced this autumn - and suggests that a promise to completely scrap inheritance tax might be an option.

You can read the full article at

DAN HODGES: Kemi will have to be swift and bold to halt the snap election Andy Burnham is planning - and is on course to win | Daily Mail Online

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