亚历克斯·威克姆、克洛伊·查普兰和艾伦·米利根报道安迪·伯纳姆对英国最古老的政治传统之一——辩论首相是否会提前举行大选——几乎没有耐心。
By Alex Wickham, Chloe Chaplain and Ellen Milligan Andy Burnham has shown little patience for one of Britain’s oldest political traditions: debating whether the prime minister will call an early election.
“不，短期内不会有大选，”伯纳姆在9月25日表示，并补充说，“所有关于提前大选的猜测，我都可以就此打消。”这样的声明并不能平息关于这位英国领导人是否会诉诸投票的疑问，而投票是首相所能使用的最强有力的杠杆之一。决策正确，伯纳姆将获得所需的权威，从而与他前任基尔·斯塔默更明确地划清界限。决策失误，他可能终结自己的政治生涯，并印证英国无法治理的担忧。
“No, no election any time soon,” Burnham said on Sept. 25, adding, “all of this speculation on an early election, I can knock that dead.”Such proclamations won’t put to rest questions about whether the UK leader will go to the polls, one of the most powerful levers a prime minister has to pull. Get the decision right, and Burnham would secure the authority he needs to make a clearer break with his predecessor, Keir Starmer. Get it wrong, and he could end his political career and affirm fears that Britain is ungovernable.
一位工党高级官员私下称这一想法是疯狂的。以下是提前大选对伯纳姆而言充满风险的原因：与美国不同——美国有宪法规定的固定投票日期——英国大选在时间安排上更为灵活。首相只需在当前政府五年任期届满前宣布举行大选即可。对伯纳姆来说，这意味着2029年8月，因为他推翻了两年多前带领工党赢得胜利的人：前首相斯塔默。
One senior Labour official privately described the idea as madness. Here’s why an early election is fraught with risk for Burnham: Unlike the US, which has a constitutionally fixed date for voters to go to the polls, Britain’s general elections are a more flexible affair. The prime minister must only call an election before the current government’s five-year term expires. For Burnham, that means August 2029 because he deposed the man who led Labour to victory two years ago: former Prime Minister Starmer.
虽然斯塔默在民调中的崩盘一度让关于何时举行大选的辩论沉寂下来，但伯纳姆领导下工党公众支持率的回升再次引发了这一讨论。
While Starmer’s collapse in the polls for a time silenced the debate about when to hold the election, a bump in Labour’s public approval under Burnham has reawakened it.
举行选举的理由核心在于合法性问题。若不举行选举，伯纳姆——他在6月之前一直担任大曼彻斯特市长——就缺乏斯塔默所能主张的那种治理国家的全国性授权。此外，选举将给他机会修改政策承诺，而据许多工党人士称，这些承诺束缚了该党实现变革的能力。其中包括禁止广泛增税，以及承诺不逆转英国2016年脱欧的决定。
The case for an election centers on issues of legitimacy. Without one, Burnham, who until June served as mayor of Greater Manchester, lacks the sort of national mandate to govern that Starmer could claim. Moreover, it would give him the chance to revise policy pledges that, according to many Labour figures, hamstring the party’s ability to deliver change. Those include a prohibition against broad-based tax increases and a vow not to reverse the UK’s 2016 decision to leave the European Union.
此外，奈杰尔·法拉奇在民调中的下滑已减弱了右翼民粹主义获胜的紧迫威胁。伯纳姆可以从相对强势的地位发起投票。全球经济前景的下滑也可能需要更激进的政策举措，而这些举措在没有新授权的情况下很难推行。
Moreover, Nigel Farage’s decline in the polls has reduced the immediate threat of a right-wing populist victory. Burnham could call a vote from a position of relative strength. A decline in the global economic outlook may also require more radical policy moves that would be hard to push through without a fresh mandate.
伯纳姆的首份预算——阐述其政府支出优先事项——将于10月出台。12月，他将公布一项改革“十年计划”。如果这两份文件受到好评，它们可能提供一个平台，借此发起全国性竞选。首相于9月27日宣布，他将以改革该国运转不灵的社会护理体系的计划来角逐下届大选，这加剧了外界猜测：他可能在明年年中完成对该问题的评估后举行大选。
Burnham’s first budgetlaying out his government’s spending prioritiescomes in October. In December, he’s due to unveil a “10-year plan” for reform. If well-received, those two documents could provide a platform from which to mount a national campaign. The prime minister’s announcement on Sept. 27 that he’ll fight the next election on a plan to overhaul the country’s sputtering social care system has fueled speculation that he could go to the polls after a review of the problem is completed in the middle of next year.
鲍里斯·约翰逊在2019年12月决定举行大选，尽管他的任期本可到2022年，这是一个决策对首相而言结果良好的突出例子。在以其“完成脱欧”的誓言统一保守党后，约翰逊利用了工党在左翼前领袖杰里米·科尔宾领导下的分裂，赢得了巨大多数席位。
Boris Johnson’s move to call an election in December 2019 even though he had a mandate through to 2022 stands out as an example of when the decision worked out well for the prime minister. Having unified his Conservative party around a vow to “get Brexit done,” Johnson capitalized on divisions in Labour under its leftist former leader Jeremy Corbyn and secured a large majority.
约翰逊的前任特蕾莎·梅则提供了一个警示故事。她在一些民调中领先20个百分点之际走向选民，结果却失去了多数席位，被迫领导一个少数政府。
Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, provided a cautionary tale. She went to voters buoyed by a 20-percentage-point lead in some polls, only to wind up losing her majority and being forced to lead a minority government.
主要反对党保守党在过去一年里因民调略有回升而士气大振，外界对其领袖凯米·巴德诺赫的看法也有所改善。然而，该党的民调支持率仍低于2024年大选时获得的24%，而法拉奇领导的英国改革党正威胁要夺走其许多核心的右倾选民。
The main opposition Conservatives have been buoyed over the past year by a slight pickup in the polls amid improved perceptions of their leader Kemi Badenoch. Yet the party is still polling below the 24% it secured in the 2024 election, and Farage’s Reform UK is threatening to steal away many of its core, right-leaning voters.
改革党自身近几周也因一系列财务丑闻而支持率下滑。该党在2024年仅赢得下议院五个席位，但从2025年4月起在全国民调中领先了一年多。如今它已落后于工党，在某些民调中甚至落后于保守党。如果法拉奇的运势转差，其人气在未来几个月继续下滑，这可能会促使一些工党助手寻求借机推动提前大选以巩固优势。但成功并无保证，因为法拉奇很可能会效仿唐纳德·特朗普的策略，将竞选包装成对抗建制派阴谋的斗争。
Reform itself has suffered a dip in recent weeks amid a series of scandals about the party’s finances. It only won five seats in the House of Commons in 2024, but led national polls for more than a year from April 2025. Now it’s slipped behind Labour and — in some polls — even behind the Tories. Should Farage’s fortunes take a turn for the worse and his popularity continue to wane in the coming months, that might cause some Labour aides to seek to press home the advantage with an election. Success might not be assured, as Farage would likely take a cue from Donald Trump’s playbook of campaigning against an establishment stitch-up.
风险在于伯纳姆可能失去席位，甚至失去多数地位。他继承了一个庞大的议会多数优势，目前为166席。YouGov在9月20日当周进行的逐席详细分析显示，工党将在下议院650个席位中赢得241席，而目前它拥有403席。这将使其远未达到多数，可能迫使伯纳姆拼凑某种“彩虹联盟”。这将被载入英国政治史上最严重的自伤行为之一。
The risk is that Burnham loses seats, or even his majority. He inherited a huge parliamentary majority that stands at 166. Detailed seat-by-seat analysis by YouGov in the week of Sept. 20had Labour winning 241 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, compared to the 403 it currently holds. That would leave it well short of a majority, and could require Burnham to cobble together some kind of rainbow coalition. This would go down as one of the biggest self-inflicted wounds in British political history.
经济前景也提供了反对举行投票的另一个理由。政府正准备应对今年晚些时候通胀、利率和能源账单的上升，以及伊朗战争影响显现后经济降温的局面。财政状况同样严峻。在这种背景下呼吁举行大选，将给工党的对手提供一个平台，让他们辩称工党正计划增税。
The economic outlook presents another argument against going for a vote. The government is braced for increases in inflation, interest rates and energy bills later this year and for the economy to cool as the impact of the Iran war is felt. The fiscal picture is also difficult. Calling an election against that backdrop would give Labour’s opponents a platform to argue they were planning to raise taxes.