Rishi Sunak was asked “what are you waiting for” as demands increased for him to name the date of the general election.
The prime minister was grilled during a radio phone-in on LBC this morning.
Presenter Nick Ferrari told Sunak they had received thousands of questions from listeners ahead of his appearance on his breakfast show.
“The overwhelming majority, I’ve never seen anything like it, were ‘when is the general election’,” he said.
“Candidly, you’d be nuts to give me the date here and now. But let me put this a different way: what are you waiting for, to announce the date?”
In reply, the PM said: “When I got this job, we’d been through a tough time as a country. We had the pandemic, war in Ukraine, impact on energy bills, and there was a lot to get on with.
“I set out five very clear priorities; to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut waiting lists and to stop the boats, and on all of those I’m keen to just make progress and demonstrate to the country that if we stick to our plan, we can deliver the change that they and I want to see.”
Asked if that meant the election would be at “the tail end of 2024”, Sunak replied: “I said at the beginning of this year that my working assumption was that we would have an election in the second half of this year.
“Beyond the timing of that, I think it’s really important to focus on the substance of the choice.”
Successive opinion polls suggest that whenever the election is called, Sunak faces an enormous challenge to be re-elected as prime minister.
Last month, a Survation survey said the Tories are on course to win fewer than 100 seats in what would be their worst ever election performance.