Rishi Sunak should call general election later in year, says Cameron

The Prime Minister should go “long” on calling the general election to give as much time as possible for voters to benefit from an improving economy, Lord Cameron has said.

The Foreign Secretary said it would be “absolutely right” for Rishi Sunak to call the election in the second half of the year. He told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News: “The longer we have between now and the election, the more you’re going to see the plan is working.”

Asked on what his advice to Mr Sunak would be, he said: “I’d say to him ‘stick to the plan’. I think the Prime Minister is a good man doing a great job at a difficult time.

“And I think you’ve got a very clear choice opening up, and that’s what happens as you get to the end of a parliament. It stops being a referendum on the Government every day and it starts being a choice between two teams.”

The Telegraph revealed last week that Downing Street has shelved plans for a general election this summer with an autumn vote now widely expected after Tory local election defeats.

Allies of the Prime Minister say he is hoping that an improving economic picture and the Rwanda deportation flights expected this summer will improve his re-election chances in the autumn.

Number 10 sources had suggested that if a plot to oust the Prime Minister had materialised after the local election results, it could have triggered an election in June or July. But Tory rebels are said to have given up on changing the party’s leader before the general election.

Senior figures working on the Tory campaign now believe it is “80 - 90 per cent likely” Mr Sunak will reject a summer election, instead calling one for October or November.