In the immediate aftermath of last week’s budget, delivered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healey (whose photo is on the home page), the prime minister, Andy Burnham, for whom this was the first major fiscal event of his (to date) three-month administration, was (nearly) as emphatic as he had been previously. We could all rule out a general election for at least 12 months. “I’m not thinking about my own party and its prospects,” he insisted. “I am thinking about people and I am thinking about what I can do to help them.” By way of a reminder, shortly after he became PM he had said he would not be calling a election before he had to, which would take us to the summer of 2029. So it is not unfair to suggest that the goalposts have been moved, at least marginally if not completely.

The thing is, the public mostly do not like having unnecessary elections foisted upon them, and since Labour has a stonking parliamentary majority, it would be hard for Burnham to make the case to the country that he absolutely had no choice. He has said he feels morally and politically constrained to stick essentially to the main planks of the manifesto that his predecessor, Keir Starmer, was elected on. Fundamentally, this means he feels he cannot raise income tax, VAT or national insurance unless he had a mandate to do that. Which means any early election would perforce be fought by this government on a slogan of ‘Vote Labour so we can tax you more’. I am not sure how much of a vote-winner that is.

A right-wing commentator, Robert Colville, wrote: “There can’t be an early election. But there has to be an early election. It’s impossible but also inevitable. Calling one would be political suicide. But so, most likely, would not calling one.” From the left of the spectrum, Larry Elliott had a piece in The Guardian headlined ‘This tinkering budget is a sign that an election is not far away’ in which he opined: “Burnham has repeatedly said that he has no plans to go to the country early, which if true will be a relief to the many Labour MPs who would almost certainly lose their seats…but if that is his intention, he will need to get a move on – because now is as good as it is going to get.”

Which is surely a germane point. Writing in the Sunday Times the weekend before the budget, Rishi Sunak, the former Conservative PM and also a former Chancellor, suggested “we are being asked to believe a Labour government will go into an election with several departmental budgets being cut in real terms. If you think Labour ministers and MPs will accept that, I’d like to introduce you to my good friend the tooth fairy”. He concluded: “The other possibility is that they are planning an early election…that would push the [financial] reckoning beyond polling day, giving them more flexibility.”

I guess that sounds more likely the more one thinks about it.