Rishi Sunak will not call the general election until the autumn despite a disastrous set of local election results, a cabinet minister has signalled.
Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, said on Tuesday morning the election was still “some months” away.
The Conservatives lost nearly 500 council seats at the local elections last week, as well as all but one mayoral race.
Stride told Times Radio: “It was a very painful set of a results there’s no doubt about that.”
But he said there was still “all to play for” when it came to the general election which was an “entirely different contest” with a “very volatile electorate”.
“I think all possibilities are open,” he said. “We have some months now before there is a general election.”
Westminster has been awash with rumours for weeks that Sunak - under pressure from rebel Tory MPs - could decide to go to the country in July.
Stride’s comments suggest the prime minister will now wait until later in the year to hold the election, possibly October or November.
In the wake of the local election results Sunak all but admitted he is on course to be kicked out of Downing Street.
“These results suggest we are heading for a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party,” he said.
There is no plausible situation that would see the Conservatives return to power in a hung parliament as other smaller parties would not support them.
Sunak’s comments were a reference to a projection by the polling expert Michael Thrasher.
The Sky News analyst said the local elections suggested Labour’s lead over the Conservatives is just seven points, well short of what opinion polls have been saying for months.
If that was repeated at the general election, it would leave Starmer short of an overall majority, Thrasher said.
But that interpretation of the local elections has been challenged by other polling and election experts.
Ben Page, global chief executive of Ipsos, said the Conservatives were as popular as “a cup of cold sick” and the idea Labour would not win a majority was “for the birds”.
“We haven’t seen anything of this kind since just before Labour won a landslide in 1997,” he said.