A week after Rishi Sunak fired the starting gun on this summer's general election from outside a rainy Downing Street, Philip Cowley and Matthew Bailey explore the history of this British 'tradition'.
Regardless of what happens over the rest of the election campaign, one of the defining images of the 2024 contest will be the Prime Minister announcing the election, a week ago, in the pouring rain. When asked why, Rishi Sunak replied that it was because he liked to do things in the traditional way. “I believe very strongly in the traditions of our country. And when you’re making a statement of that magnitude as Prime Minister, I believe in just doing it in the traditional way, come rain and shine, in front of the steps of Downing Street.”
Yet like so many British traditions this one doesn’t date back very far – less than 30 in fact, and even then it is one that has not always been observed.
Most post-war elections were not announced by the Prime Minister outside Number 10. Normal practice was for an official announcement to be issued from Downing Street. In 1951 Clement Attlee had made a radio announcement on the BBC (it was, said the Daily Mail, “the first time a Prime Minister had broken the news of an impending General Election on the radio”). In 1955 Anthony Eden did something similar, this time broadcasting from Chequers. But for the most part, the form was for a statement from Number 10, which was then often followed by media appearances later in the day.
The first person to announce the election by standing outside the famous front door of Number 10 was John Major in 1992. When he did – just in time to catch the one o’clock news – the press reported it as a break with tradition. The Mail noted it “allowed him instant access to lunchtime news bulletins head and seen by millions”. According to Michael White in the Guardian “he turned the occasion into a free party political broadcast”.
The lectern – on which so much attention is now paid – is even more recent. Major did not have one. Nor did Tony Blair or Gordon Brown. We have David Cameron to blame for that one.
And note that even after Major’s innovation in 1992, not every Prime Minister has made the announcement outside No 10. In 2001 Blair chose to speak at a school in Southwark instead. The BBC’s report of the event said that he was “abandoning the traditional Downing Street doorstep” – a sentence which proves that in the UK something can have become “traditional” after less than a decade.
Philip Cowley is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary and Matthew Bailey is an independent researcher with a particular interest in British politics.