The news that Jeremy Hunt will deliver next year’s budget on 6 March sparked a fresh round of speculation that Rishi Sunak may be intending a spring election. But it nonetheless seems extraordinarily unlikely.
Look to history. Historically, the fifth year of a parliament tends to be used only by governments that know they’re on the way out – Gordon Brown held out until 2010, John Major until 1997. There is always the hope that something will turn up, and an understandable reluctance on the part of politicians, too, to give up a year in office.
