We don’t know what finally persuaded Sunak to go now – but it’s significant that he previously cited a Sky News projection of a House of Commons that pointed towards a hung parliament.
The prime minister has surprised many, including within his own party, with his decision to hold a general election on 4 July. There are few, if any indications, that he will lead his party to re-election.
His gamble must surely be that during the coming weeks, when the electorate is forced to choose between himself or Sir Keir Starmer, that enough will side with the devil you know rather than plump for change.
We don’t know what finally persuaded him to go now rather than wait for the autumn.
But it is significant that in his article in The Times after the local elections, he cited the Sky News projection of a House of Commons that pointed towards a hung parliament.
Labour leads over Conservatives by 21 points
The estimate put the Conservatives on 26% with Labour nine points ahead on 35%, a much lower level of support than shown in national opinion polls.
Naturally, the prime minister chose to be as optimistic about this projection as he possibly could be. He ignored the fact that the Conservatives were on course to lose 130 parliamentary seats after posting one of its worst ever local election performances.
He chose to ignore the fact that Labour was poised to overtake the Conservatives as the largest party, instead preferring to emphasise that there was all to play for at a future general election.
There certainly were aspects of the local elections that are at odds with national polling which currently show a 20 point or so Labour lead over the Conservatives. Labour failed to make significant gains of council seats from the Conservatives, sharing the limelight with Liberal Democrats, Greens and, a variety of Independents.
In some parts of the country with large Muslim populations, Labour’s vote haemorrhaged in favour of candidates standing specifically on the issues of Labour’s chosen stance on the situation in Gaza.
The nine-point gap in the estimated nationwide vote between Conservative and Labour compares unfavourably with that which existed between the Major government and the Blair onslaught unleashed in the mid-1990s prior to Labour’s eventual general election landslide in 1997.