Announcing the election outside 10 Downing Street in the rain, Sunak declared he had requested the dissolution of Parliament, and the King had granted it: the election race is now on.

Competing for the nation’s attention with D:Ream’s 1990s hit 'Things Can Only Get Better' being played by activist Steve Bray in nearby Whitehall, Britain’s rain-soaked prime minister launched his challenge to bookies’ favourite and opposition leader Keir Starmer, saying he would “fight for every vote”.

The announcement came the same day as ONS figures showed that inflation had fallen to its lowest level in nearly three years – just 2.3% in the 12 months to April 2024, down again from 3.2% in March.

The progress towards inflation’s normal bounds has driven speculation that the Bank of England may cut its high interest rates this summer. 

The fall in inflation has largely been driven by a sharp drop in the price of gas and electricity of 27% and 38% respectively in the year to April.

“We knew it was imminent, but it’s still come as a bit of a surprise,” BPIF chief executive Charles Jarrold told Printweek. 

“It’s fair to say that many agree it’s time for an election, though how much of a change there will be remains to be seen,” he added.

At the simplest level, he said, elections generate a huge demand for print.

“It remains the most impactful, persistent and attention-grabbing media, even more so operating in complement with digital. So, short-term, that’s good news.”

Simon Cooper, managing director at Printweek Company of the Year Solopress, said the firm had already seen an uptick in election-related orders since yesterday evening’s announcement and the business was gearing up to extend its operating hours.

“From our point-of-view my whole perspective is what does that mean for business. We get involved in doing a fair bit of election printing so it typically means a good uptick.

“We’ve already spoken to our team about going 24/7. Our normal shifts are 24/6 in litho and 24/5 in finishing, but we’ve spoken with everyone about getting up to a seven day a week work pattern,” he explained.

“We also thankfully secured some paper in advance as we’d heard a couple of murmurings that there could be an early election. We’ve secured an additional two million sheets so we’re in a pretty good position from a supply chain point-of-view and by ramping up to seven days I think we’ll have the firepower we need to stay on top of it.”

Cooper said Solopress was also recruiting some temporary staff to help with the additional workload.

“We work with a lot of election agents and we’re completely agnostic about what we produce – as long as the material we’re producing doesn’t break any laws and isn’t inciting violence or hatred, our view is we’re not here to censor it. We’re just the ink on paper people,” he added.

Connor Sadik, sales director at Birmingham mailing house Bakergoodchild, told Printweek the firm had already seen a dozen enquiries in the past 24 hours – all of them urgent jobs, needing to be turned around in 24 hours.

He said: “I think the fact that all of the major political parties are still using print when the stakes are so high, just proves how powerful and effective the channel is.

“What’s going to be important, given the urgency of a surprise election, is going to be the turnaround.”

Trade-only signage and display firm Graphics Warehouse's managing director Richard McCombe told Printweek it had also seen an immediate jump in interest.

“Our [customer] demographic services the wider economy, so we see the influence of political activity having an immediate impact on site traffic and transactions.

“Even yesterday [21 May] we noticed a surge in traffic in the afternoon, with an increase in online quotations and web chats,” he said.

McCombe added that he hoped that this surge in business – in conjunction with the news that inflation has dropped – might drive confidence in larger projects that have been delayed, something which many customers have had to do since late 2023.

“We have noticed that public sector spending has decreased in the past 10 years, which influenced our decision to move into the ‘trade only’ sector,” he said. 

“It could be that a fiscal policy change may energise the public sector, allowing the print service providers to flourish, cascading throughout the economy. This would be exciting for the whole print industry.”

Labour – 22 points ahead of the Conservatives at the time of writing – has been positioning itself as business-friendly, with shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves declaring that a Labour government would “restore Britain’s reputation as a place to do business”, and a ‘Labour Business Partnership for Growth’ pledge which will give businesses and unions formal representation in the formation of economic policy.

Building closer ties with government would be a priority for the BPIF, said Jarrold.

“We want to work closely with decision makers. We already strongly promote and support MP visits to member sites – these are a massive benefit to all in building shared appreciation of both challenges and opportunities,” he said.

“[Our members would like the government to] support investment in skills and technology for the long term and help prime investment in environmental impact reduction in a manner that reduces cost and improves efficiency rather than increasing compliance and bureaucracy.

“And, while on that topic, listen carefully to business views on the costs of doing business in the UK.  I’m sure we can achieve many of the goals that any government, and indeed we all want, but we need to be working together.”

Brendan Perring, general manager of the IPIA, told Printweek that – whoever wins – the next government will come in with a “renewed energy, enthusiasm, and desire to change things”.

He said: “From an IPIA perspective, and for the industry, we very much hope that the work that has been started under the current government about strengthening and investing in UK manufacturing will continue.

“We have an incredibly proud manufacturing history in this country, and the UK print and paper industry is still in the top 10 in the world for its scale and output – and we are every bit as technologically advanced as Germany, China, or the USA – so we have incredibly rich potential here. 

“All it needs is for the next government to realise that potential and help the print and paper industries become a real success story for the UK.”