Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Pencil the date in your diary. The next general election will be held on the first Thursday of May 2015.

What do you mean, you're busy that day? The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have agreed on fixed term parliaments as part of their coalition deal.

So the next general election date is already known, provided the coalition survives that long. Some of you may be double booked - it looks as if the next UK general election will be held on the day Wales and Scotland go to the polls to elect AMs and MSPs.

This will have several likely effects. The main parties will have to find 100 candidates each. Turn-out will rise, which will probably benefit UK-wide parties. The campaign will be confusing for many voters. Will prime ministerial debates take place during campaigns for Cardiff Bay and Edinburgh? I imagine Alex Salmond has already reached for his writing paper.

Next year's Assembly elections are a more pressing engagement for all the parties, four of whom will enter the campaign with a stake in government somewhere. All can take the credit for successes and blame each other for failures.

Several newspapers reported during the campaign how the Conservatives expected to become the most unpopular government in history within months. The Bank of England Governor Mervyn King has suggested the spending cuts required will be so painful the winning party(ies) could be out of power for a generation.

Perhaps 2010 was a good election to lose. Immediate spending cuts, which the Lib Dems have apparently signed up to, may be necessary to cut the deficit but they're unlikely to win votes next May. There's plenty of scope for political parties seeking to play the grievance card in the Assembly election campaign.

Little wonder perhaps that there are some in Labour and Plaid circles in Cardiff Bay who are privately relieved by the outcome of the coalition negotiations at Westminster.

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