Break out the pop-corn! A source just told me that the date for the election will be announced immediately after the Budget, to be held just over 6 weeks from then. This would make it 2nd of July.
[Shortly after this hasty post, Conor Roberts informed me that this date coincided with the All Blacks vs Lions match in Wellington.
Indeed, Molesworth and Featherston has mentioned this before, saying that the only likely date around this time was the 9th of July (which coincides with the AB vs Lions match in Auckland). There were reasons that discounted the other dates around that time, but I didn't keep those old copies.
Incidentally, in their 5 April issue, which I did have a copy of, M&F said that they "believe an election before September is highly unlikely", since there's none of the hint-dropping or other groundwork like that which accompanied the snap election last time, and that there is no real excuse for an early election.]
Could the Budget be so yummy that Labour suspects that a "here's the money, now, about this voting business..." line would work? Or is it an attempt to draw attention away from the details of the Budget by getting the Gallery to scramble to battle stations? Or is the Budget so boring that they figured that, since they were going to call an early election anyway, they could get more bang for their buck by linking the Budget with the election announcement?
I'm not a great fan of idle speculation, but hey, what are political blogs for? Guess we'll see closer to the time.
P.S. Check back on Monday at noon for a completely unrelated (but infinitely more well-founded and substantive) scoop!