The Conservatives are planning to go to the polls in almost exactly a year, according to inside reports.
With speculation over an election date reaching fever pitch, the Sunday newspapers gave our first hint of the date Rishi Sunak will ask the public to decide on his future as prime minister: 31st October 2024 – meaning Britain would go to the polls on Halloween.
The Sunday Times quoted a Tory source suggesting a Halloween election is the most likely time for the next election. “October 31 is a Thursday,” they told the paper.
“That is what people are working towards.”
Sunak will hope that the spooky date will offer his party the best chance of coming back from the dead, but judging by the reaction on social media, most people have their fingers crossed for an altogether different outcome.
It has also been suggested that the longer Sunak goes before calling an election, the worse things could get.
Penning an op-ed last week, David Sefton said the PM should look to grapple with the task that history has afforded him: “not of being a great reforming PM, but of being a great reforming party leader whose role is to get the Tories electable again”.
Marina Purkiss, meanwhile, said Sunak is less concerned about his legacy and will act purely out of self-interest in the coming months.
“He knows he’s going to lose”, she said, and so he will “hold onto office for as long as he can purely because the longer he is in that position the longer he is able to use it to extract cash, contracts and all the rest”.
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