Fix the date

When Tony Blair takes the short drive to Buckingham Palace today, he might usefully reflect on how much less fraught his past few days might have been if there had been no speculation about the date of the election.

When Tony Blair takes the short drive to Buckingham Palace today, he might usefully reflect on how much less fraught his past few days might have been if there had been no speculation about the date of the election. Just think: if the Prime Minister did not have the luxury of deciding when to go to the country, he would have had no need to postpone his trip down the Mall, no need to agonise about choosing the Vatican over Windsor Castle, no need to keep the Opposition guessing. The date would be fixed for good. Now there's a constitutional improvement for a third-term prime minister to bequeath to the country.