Sunday, January 19, 2025
Today we have a Labour government and a Democrat President.
Tomorrow, after 5pm GMT, we will not have both of these.
It is also possible that this combination will never happen again.
This unnerves me, although if you're more right wing this may be excellent.
I wondered how often we'd had a Labour government and a Democrat President.
Here are the periods of doubling-up since 1945.
Jul 1945 - Oct 1951: Attlee & Truman
Oct 1964 - Jan 1969: Wilson & Johnson
Jan 1977 - May 1979: Callaghan & Carter
May 1997 - Jan 2001: Blair & Clinton
Jan 2009 - May 2010: Brown & Obama
Jul 2024 - Jan 2025: Starmer & Biden
That's 196 months of overlap, or 16 years out of 80.
Here are the Conservative/Republican overlaps.
Jan 1953 - Jan 1961: Churchill/Eden/Macmillan & Eisenhower
Jan 1971 - Mar 1974: Heath & Nixon/Ford
Jan 1981 - Jan 1993: Thatcher/Major & Reagan/Bush
Jan 2017 - Jan 2021: May/Johnson & Trump
That's 27 years of overlap, including six complete Presidential terms.
Neither of these lists is likely to change until 2029 when a new President has to take office and by when Labour has to have held a General Election.
We could potentially get one last brief doubling-up...
Jan 2029 - Jul 2029: Starmer & another Democrat
But if Sir Keir goes early we could equally get...
Apr 2029 - Jan 2033: another Conservative & another Republican
Or perhaps...
Jan 2029 - Jan 2037: Reform & another Republican
Or even...
2029 - forever: rightwing overlords
It's all essentially unguessable.
But it is possible that Labour/Democrat never happens again.
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