You’ve fired the election starting gun, prime minister, so let’s get on with it

Editorial: For all that the PM’s speech was an election opener, the one question that needs a definite answer was left hanging. For exactly how much longer will the country have to endure a campaign that has a start, but (as yet) no end?

Rishi Sunak delivers a keynote address at the Policy Exchange think tank in central London on Monday (PA)

If anyone still harboured any doubts that the UK is now in the run-up to a general election, the prime minister’s wide-ranging speech at a true-blue London think tank will have allayed them.

With the local and mayoral elections out of the way, Rishi Sunak was clearly keen to put the Conservatives’ losses behind him, and he did so by firing the starting gun on what could be a long and gruelling campaign.

You could see his logic: seize the initiative, set out the big choices, try to quash criticism about any perceived inadequacies in the vision department by embracing the future – and presenting Labour as the party of the past.