Rishi Sunak is – not unusually – playing it safe by saying his ‘working assumption’ is that the election will be in the second half of this year. The speculation that it would be on 2 May had been building to the point that the Prime Minister was at risk of looking afraid if he didn’t then go for a spring poll. He knows from watching what happened to Gordon Brown’s Election That Never Was the dangers of ramping up speculation without following through. That doesn’t mean he won’t change course and go for the May election in the end anyway, but dampening the chatter about it is a sensible tactic.
One of the reasons many Conservatives assumed there would be an election on 2 May is that the local elections are also due to be held on this day, which means councillors will be out knocking on doors to save their own bacon as well as that of the MP.
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