Why isn’t Ed Miliband calling for an early election?

It’s now over 3 years and 11 months since the last election. Early next month this government will reach its four year anniversary, and something rather strange will happen – the opposition won’t have called for an election. Not even once. Not even half-heartedly.

Usually by the four year point, a government is tired, running out of energy and ideas and mentally preparing itself either for renewal in office or defeat. This government is no different. In fact, this government is in many ways the perfect exemplar of a government that has run out of steam. Whilst the first year of the coalition government was filled with a flurry of legislation, now the Commons is near empty most days. We’re now in recess, but to be honest, Westminster has been pretty quiet – resignations permitting – for some time. As Paul Waugh noted earlier this week, MPs could be on recess for most of the next few months.

Quite simply, the government has little to do. “Differentiation” now means that the two coalition parties are trying to hint at what they would do post-coalition, without upsetting the governmental applecart. That’s a recipe for inertia. So there will be longer recesses (handy for Tory MPs trying to hold onto their seats). More opposition days. And still significant chunks of the coalition agreement (recall anyone) remain to be legislated for.

We have a government with little governing agenda remaining, and an opposition party which has had a poll lead for over two years. So why isn’t Ed Miliband calling for an early general election?

Of course, the advent of fixed term parliaments has changed everything. We now know the date of the next election – it’s been set in stone for years now. A mechanism designed to bind together a coalition and dissuade the Lib Dems from quitting the coalition after a few years now seems an irreversible part of our flexible constitution. That’s had a huge impact on Ed Miliband’s leadership – as the first opposition leader to know exactly when election day will be. That’s mean the rhythm and cadence of the parliament has been totally different. Selections, policy making, how far and how fast to go on messaging – all have been skewed out of their ordinary timetables by the fixed-term. Where once an opposition leader – especially one with a consistent poll-lead – would have been calling for the people to have their say, either because they thought they could win, or because such an act of oppositional bravado was what was expected.

Ed Miliband will do nothing of the sort. Labour have adopted the fixed-term parliament with few quibbles – and accepted it as if it were an inalienable fact. Of course it isn’t, if David Cameron wanted a general election in six weeks he could have one. But it now suits Miliband and Labour to wait until 2015. The Labour Party would not be ready – organisationally, politically and certainly not in policy terms – if Cameron called an election today. And yet, whilst it would be made for Labour to clamour for an early election that it’s not prepared for, it’s hard not to argue that our already narrowed lead could come under increased fire in the next 13 months. The economic situation seems far stronger, the Tories have the money to throw at a long and protracted campaign, and they have the set pieces – conference and another budget – to move the polls and hurt us.

Calling for an election today might seem crazy, but we may look back in a year and realise that fighting an election in 2014 would have been easier than fighting it in 2015. And all the while, Tory MPs are at work in their constituencies, assiduously developing an incumbency factor. The longer this parliament drags on, the bigger impact that will have…