General Election

We're seeing the behaviour you would expect on the day an election is called

Chris Mason

Political editor

I am told senior civil servants who spend their days in regular conversation with Downing Street and the heart of government are encountering a wall of silence from those they normally deal with.

A senior Conservative figure who is standing down at the election just hugged one of my colleagues goodbye.

In other words, all of the building blocks of choreography and behaviour you would expect on the day a general election is called are taking shape.

It is worth saying that each and every one of them has an individually plausible alternative explanation.

But the sum total of all of them becomes very difficult to explain away if an election isn’t either imminent or the prime minister is about to say something about when it will happen.

The thing with Westminster is to check out a rumour you have to spread it, so a rumour becomes endemic in the tilt of a ear, the blink of an eye.

But they can be squashed in an instant.

And they are not being.

Let's hope so. And let the next administration be full of boring politicians who just do their job to the best of their abilities. I am sick to death of 'characters', chancers and charlatans.

Exactly this

Hoping for a Tory wipeout

Yes. There is a risk that a few progressives think it’s in the bag and so vote Green or whoever as a protest against Starmer’s centrist position

Hopefully most people just want rid of the Tories after 14 years of chaos and decline

I’m convinced he wants out ASAP

He’s had a bellyful of being PM and trying to manage the ongoing psychodrama that is the modern Conservative Party

He might even have realised he’s not very good as it

He’s richer than the King so it’s see ya

He’s off to California

Gove is gone!

Those vote-wasting tree huggers need to figure out which planet they're on before trying to save it