Could Rishi Sunak be gearing up for a spring election?

He may be thinking it’s possible to sneak a victory when you aren’t too far behind in the polls. But does he really want to risk sacrificing the time he has left in office? Andrew Grice weighs up the pros and cons…

Sunak might prove less keen on a spring election than some of his advisers (Getty)

Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement left some ministers convinced that Rishi Sunak plans to call the general election in May next year. “It’s gone from possible to definite in my mind,” one told me.

The clincher for them is that the cut in national insurance contributions will take effect in January rather than at the start of the tax year in April. Another signal could be holding a tax-cutting Budget in February rather than March.

Some Sunak advisers have long favoured a spring election. They have told him that when John Major hung on until the last moment in 1997, it compounded the Tories’ defeat. “For every week we delayed, we lost another crop of seats,” one MP claimed. “You don’t want to be clinging on by your fingertips when the country wants an election.” A contest on the same day as local authority elections on 2 May would avoid damaging headlines about Tory losses and a sense that a general election defeat was inevitable.