Rishi Sunak has called a quick election for July 4th because he sees a ’sweet spot’ for the Conservatives, which will not last long, says financial expert, and founder of MoneyMagpie.com, Jasmine Birtles.
“We have just been told that inflation is down to 2.3%, current economic growth is not as poor as expected, and the Bank of England has probably been persuaded to bring rates down in June or July, earlier than they really should do” she says. “The next few months could be a little sunnier, economically, than they have been for the last four years, so it looks like the Conservatives are getting in while the going is good.
“Economically, things are likely to get tougher again for consumers once the days get colder and the nights draw in towards the end of the year. We know that the energy price cap will come down in July but it will go up again in October. It’s likely that the price of oil and other commodities will go up as the year goes on and inflation will increase again, bringing down hopes of more rate cuts. So it makes sense that the Conservatives should make hay while the sun shines, and hope that the weather is kind in early July to encourage even more voters out to the polling stations.”
What to do about your vote
Lots of people don’t particularly like any of our political candidates at present. YouGov showed earlier this year that “Labour and Starmer aren’t popular, but the Tories are even less so”. The recent local elections reflected this with Labour gaining 232 seats and The Conservative party losing a whopping 397. With Labour holding majority seats under a Conservative government it felt the general election was inevitable.
But what if you don’t know who to vote for? MoneyMagpie’s advice is to check on policies and not people. Often the party leaders can detract to what the vote is really all about and there are now tools online that allow people to understand which party politics align well with their own.
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