As Gordon Brown took to the world stage at the United Nations yesterday, some of his supporters back home continued to explore the practicality of an early general election. Discreet inquiries have been made, as we report today, to individuals and institutions that Labour would mobilise for financial backing if it took to the hustings. At a minimum, all of this activity implies that the Prime Minister has not ruled out an autumn general election as a matter of principle. It is an option to be kept alive until the end of September.

There are several reasons, however, why Mr Brown may prefer to wait until next year, even if his party coffers could be replenished swiftly. Britain has a parliamentary, not a presidential, system and there is absolutely no obligation for a new prime minister to ask for a personal mandate at the earliest convenient opportunity. No one yet knows how durable and high the current “Brown bounce” in the opinion polls really is and attempting to capitalise prematurely could be disastrous. Waiting until 2008 might allow the Brown backing to be assessed accurately. Downing Street must also be hoping that interest rates are at or near their peak, and it would be advantageous to hold an election against the backdrop of falling mortgage rates and rising real incomes. The smart money in political circles, therefore, is still that Mr Brown will stay his hand and look at May 8, 2008, as the moment to take the plunge.

There may be those in his entourage, nevertheless, who would prefer October 25 this year. The appeal of this date is that it would allow Labour to affect what Baldrick in the Blackadder series would describe as “a cunning plan”. In it, an election would be called immediately after the Labour conference (with the attendant publicity that would be received) and this timing would oblige the Conservatives to scrap their conclave.

It is a temptation that should be resisted. For it would be a cheap, sly and essentially unfair scam that would be seen as such by much of the electorate. It would be at odds with Mr Brown’s drive to present himself as a serious and statesmanlike leader. It would revive memories of other cunning plans associated with him that were also open to the charge of being underhand in their execution. Even if Labour were to secure a comfortable majority in the election (which is a big if), it would be a triumph with a bitter taste.

None of this would apply if the Prime Minister were to allow the Conservative Party conference to proceed as scheduled, wait for David Cameron to make his near-inevitable demand that he go to the country as soon as possible and then seek the dissolution of Parliament with the ballot held on November 1 (or perhaps 8). If Labour were to sweep to its fourth term in such circumstances, its opponents could not cry: “We were robbed.”

There might be further merit in such a time-table for the Prime Minister. Other than “events”, the most obvious difficulty that faces Mr Brown is the final intense deliberations over the EU treaty (constitution) – he cannot credibly dismiss a referendum if the end product did not safeguard British interests in a truly unambiguous fashion. Bargaining on the specifics of the text is likely, realistically, to continue to the end of this year. Mr Brown could ask for a national mandate through an election before that point, and thus be more flexible about the referendum question which would not dominate the preelection debate in such conditions. American electoral politics has long had the notion of an “October surprise”. Could Britain have a November version?