Yahoo News Why has Rishi Sunak called a UK general election sooner than anticipated?
Rishi Sunak today announced that a general election will take place in a matter of weeks, as his Conservative party languish in the opinion polls. The PM insisted that the national vote would take place in the second half of 2024, which many voters - as well as MPs in Westminster assumed would mean October or November.
But today, Sunak stepped out onto a bleak Downing Street to call a shock summer election. With the Tory party seemingly struggling, why has the Prime Minister called an election now - instead of holding off to a later date?
Here Chronicle Live explains.
Why has Sunak called an election this soon?
Today brought with it some good news for the PM, with official figures showing that inflation had slowed to 2.3 per cent last month - the lowest in almost three years. Mr Sunak marked this as a 'major milestone' for the country, which is getting 'back to normal'.
Data from earlier this month also showed that the economy had grown by 0.6 per cent over the first quarter of 2024, stunting a technical recession which came in the final half of 2023. The PM will hope that these figures will help him overturn Labour's 20 point opinion poll lead, while he may be sensing that the economic landscape is unlikely to improve significantly before autumn.
Britons feel worse off since the pandemic, with brighter economic figures unlikely to feed them through to over the next few months. Delaying an election would have allowed Jeremy Hunt to deliver another financial statement in the lead up to the vote, but official figures show that borrowing for April overshot forecasts and hit £20.5billion - meaning he would have had less scope for pre-election giveaways.
Rwandan deportation flights in the coming weeks may also help Sunak and his party claim victory, as take-offs during the campaign could allow him to evade a likely spike in small boat arrivals across the Channel - which tend to appear in the warmer months. Elsewhere, NHS waiting lists remain higher than when the PM vowed to cut them, and may not fall before the autumn.
And questions have also been swirling over Rishi's leadership, with rumblings of Tory rebels reaching fever in anticipation of challenging May local elections for the party. The PM may also have wanted to dodge further defections, after suffering two recent to Labour and one to Reform UK.
Most analysts anticipate that the polls will narrow as the election comes closer, but it appears unlikely that a drastic swing will come before the big day.
