In my professional life I spend a lot of my time thinking about the future. The purpose of scenario planning is not to predict the future; no one can really do that. It is to identify plausible futures and ensure an organisation is not caught unprepared if one of them arrives.

Good organisations do this instinctively. They prepare for events that may never happen because the consequences of being unprepared are far greater than the cost of preparation.

Political parties should think in exactly the same way.

I have a growing concern that many Conservatives are planning for an election in 2029 when they should be preparing for one in 2027.

I am not predicting an early General Election.

I am saying that the conditions under which one becomes politically attractive are beginning to emerge. That should both concern us and activate us.

For too long people have been obsessed with the Labour leadership and if or when there will be a challenge, obsessed with watching the machinations of the ruling party without fully accepting that Burnham winning the Makerfield by election has already fired the starting gun.

Starmer is gone, Burnham will be prime minister, the only interesting thing about the contest now is timing. But crucially, we should be looking beyond that event already.

A new Labour leader would inherit something every politician values.

A reset.

Not a reset of reality but a reset of perception. The economy would be the same, the pressures on public services would be the same, the challenges facing government would be the same.

The political conversation would not.

For a period of months, the story would become renewal rather than decline. Polls would move. Commentators would rediscover optimism. Voters who had drifted away would naturally take another look. More importantly, a new leader would inherit a political opportunity that rarely lasts. The ability to present themselves as both an insider and an outsider. They would be able to claim ownership of Labour’s future whilst attributing responsibility for its failures to the previous administration. Every improvement would be presented as evidence of fresh leadership whilst every continuing problem could be blamed on difficult circumstances inherited from the past.

Of course, such moments do not last forever. The longer a government remains in office, the harder it becomes to distinguish the new leadership from the record of the administration itself. Burnham’s unique advantage is that he would not be viewed as a ministerial colleague promoted from within an existing administration. He would arrive from outside the Westminster machinery carrying a narrative of both independence and renewal.

Whether justified or not, that distinction would give him considerably more political latitude than most incoming prime ministers enjoy. Burnham potentially buys himself more of a honeymoon than any other ascending PM in the last century because of the manner of his entrance to the role.

At the same time, Reform faces a different challenge.

It now runs councils, that means budget planning in difficult areas; Adult social care, SEND, waste contracts, highway maintenance. The glamorous slogans of opposition quickly give way to every difficult decision that comes with administration. Opposition is built on promises but governing is built on choices.

The first real test of many Reform administrations will arrive not during an election campaign but early next year during budget setting. And whilst they may choose to take a wrecking ball to some areas in order to appeal to their core support, governing has a habit of exposing the fault lines within broad electoral coalitions.

Opposition allows very different groups of voters to unite around shared frustration. A decision that delights one part of the coalition often alienates another. As local government decisions begin to have real world consequences, Reform’s coalition will inevitably face pressures that it has not yet experienced as a party of opposition.

At the same time, an increasingly less tribal electorate has shown itself willing to form temporary voting coalitions to achieve particular outcomes. Just as voters have been willing to unite against the Conservatives in some places, they may prove equally willing to unite against Reform.

Meanwhile the Conservative Party is rebuilding; not yet rebuilt, but rebuilding all the same. We are recovering support, and have shown in places like Harlow that with the right messaging and right campaign we can win, but nationally we are not yet in a position where anyone could honestly claim the job is complete.

Put those three factors together and a different picture potentially emerges.

A Labour Party enjoying the benefits of a leadership reset. A Reform Party discovering the realities of governing. A Conservative Party moving in the right direction but still reconstructing its electoral coalition, with an overall fracture still active on the right of politics.

If you were a new Labour Prime Minister looking at that landscape, generating a honeymoon feel good bounce, why would you wait? Why would you spend two years accumulating more difficult decisions?  Why would you allow opponents time to rebuild, recover and regroup?  Why risk the political weather changing for the worse?

An early General Election would not be viewed as reckless at that point, it would almost be viewed as rational.

Political history is littered with leaders who sought to capitalise on favourable conditions rather than wait for them to deteriorate. Elections are rarely called because circumstances cannot get worse, they are called because prime ministers believe circumstances are unlikely to get better.

The question that we need to be asking is not whether such an election will happen.

The question is whether the possibility is now strong enough that we should be seriously preparing for it.

I believe it is.

The cost of preparing too early is small. A stronger organisation remains a stronger organisation, an early selected and better prepared candidate remains a selected better prepared candidate. More voter contact remains more voter contact.

The cost of preparing too late is much higher.

Politics rewards those who recognise that the board has changed before everybody else does.

My concern is that many people are still planning for the election they expect in 2029.

The more useful exercise may be preparing for the one that could arrive earlier instead.