London CNN — If 2023 was the year British politics got stuck in traffic, 2024 should be the year it gets moving again. At some point in the next 12 months, it is expected that the United Kingdom will hold an election some would argue is long overdue. Not constitutionally overdue: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is not obliged to call an election until 17 December 2024, exactly five years since the last one took place. Overdue in the sense that the incumbent Conservative government’s mandate – won in 2019 on Boris Johnson’s optimistic , pre-Covid, post-Brexit platform – belongs to a different decade. The UK is going through a difficult patch. There is a cost-of-living crisis . Inflation and interest rates are very high by comparison with any period of time in the past decade. Public services, already struggling to keep up with demand, have been stretched further by rising costs and strike action, leading to longer waits for hospital treatment. There is a shortage of affordable housing and frequent strikes disrupt rail services. And all of this is happening at a time when the tax burden is historically high. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, pictured at a news conference in Downing Street in September, became Conservative Party leader in October 2022. Many of these problems were inherited by Sunak when he took over from Liz Truss in October 2022 . Since coming into office, Sunak’s primary objective has been to steady the ship after his two predecessors, Truss and Johnson before her, oversaw such chaotic governments that they were both forced from office as Conservative polling numbers fell through the floor. Sunak has since done his best to patch the hole in his sinking ship. But, more often than not, he and his government look stuck between a […]
Click here to visit source. As the UK heads into 2024, many are hoping for a long overdue election