Rishi Sunak may call the general election for November 14, one of Britain’s leading political experts said on Friday.
Sir John Curtice, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, believes the Prime Minister may fire the starting gun for the election in his speech to close the Tory annual rally in Birmingham on October 2.
He made the prediction after Mr Sunak put Britain on track for an autumn election after all but ruling out one in May.
Sir John told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Now, there is beginning to be a consensus it might be November 14. All the parties have decided to hold their party conferences rather early next autumn. The Prime Minister will end the Conservative conference on October 2 that might be the starting gun.”
He also stressed that the PM appeared to have decided to bank two years in No 10 rather than risk serving just 18 months by calling a May election.
On a visit to Nottinghamshire on Thursday, Mr Sunak said: “So my working assumption is we’ll have a general election in the second half of this year and in the meantime I’ve got lots that I want to get on with.”
Labour and the Liberal Democrats responded by accusing the Prime Minister of “bottling” calling a general election, a claim thrown at Gordon Brown in 2007 when he decided not to go to the polls having let speculation grow that he would call an early election.
Sir John painted a bleak picture for the Tories' prospects, stressing they were still on around 25 per cent in the polls.
“That is where they have been constistently throughout the autumn despite their various attempts to try to seize the initiative,” he added.
“And indeed that is the level at which the party was at shortly after Rishi Sunak took over from Liz Truss. So, so far, I’m afraid the Prime Minister has not made any discernible progress in improving his party’s fortunes.”
Labour’s popularity had fallen since autumn 2022, he added, but the Tories were still around 18 points behind.
The Conservatives are hoping that the cost of living crisis will ease and that millions of people will start to feel better off.
But Sir John explained further: “The Government will also have to persuade the public that they deserve credit for this.
“The problem they face is that many people at the moment blame the Government, rightly or wrong, for the state of the economy, not least because of the experience of Liz Truss’ ill-fated administration.”
He stressed that the same principle applied to tax cuts, with the overall tax burden rising towards the highest since shortly after the Second World War.
Cuts to national insurance, announced by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in the Autumn Statement come in on Saturday and he is expected to announced further reductions in his March 6 Budget.
But freezes on income tax thresholds mean that the overall tax burden is still currently rising.
Sir John emphasised: “Whether or not you can persuade people that you should now get credit for beginning to bring it back down again [the tax burden] that’s quite a substantial political challenge.”
Labour had claimed that a spring vote is the “worst kept secret in Parliament” in a possible ploy to claim Mr Sunak has bottled it if he went longer.
The Liberal Democrats have also been calling for Mr Sunak to hold the vote in May rather than trying to “cling on” to power for the rest of the year.
Many political observers, though, have long predicted an autumn election.
