大象传媒

Prime Minister Theresa May last week called for a snap election. Such elections are rare and can have surprising outcomes. The Westminster Hour's Sam Macrory speaks to Lord Hennessy, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Lord Armstrong, Dame Margaret Beckett, Lord Donoughue and Deborah Mattinson about Ted Heath's ill-fated snap election of February 1974, Harold Wilson's October follow-up and the snap election that never was in 2007.

Warning that politicians who call snap elections cannot control the issues on which the electorate then vote, Lord Hennessy warns: "Don鈥檛 risk snap elections, because they can snap back at you."