Gove predicts November election – but insists he has ‘no inside information’

Michael Gove has said the general election will be held on the second or third Thursday in November, but has made an unusual claim that he has “no inside information at all”.

A day after his meeting with the Prime Minister, as speculation raged over when the election would be held, Mr Gove said he believed it would be held on November 14 or November 21.

The promotion secretary, who has been one of the most influential Tory MPs since his election in 2005, made the prediction despite claiming he and Rishi Sunak had not discussed the timing of the election.

Appear in political currency podcast Mr Gove, who was joined by Ed Balls and George Osborne, said: “I think it was November 14 or 21… I don’t have any inside information at all.”

Balls, the former Labor shadow chancellor, quipped that Gove “just went to see the Prime Minister today”.

But Gove said he and the Prime Minister had not discussed the election, adding: “If he told me, I couldn’t tell you… so the fact that I’m telling you what I think proves I don’t know”.

Mr Osborne, the former chancellor, said: “I thought it was November 14th. One of the people I value most for political acumen is Michael Gove. There’s no way Rishi Sunak could have told Michael Gove.”

A few weeks ago, Mr Sunak confirmed he would not call a snap general election alongside local elections on May 2, which would have cost the Conservatives hundreds of parliamentary seats.

Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer accused the Prime Minister of “bottling things up” on Thursday, with the Conservatives trailing Labor by 22 points in opinion polls.

Speaking at the launch of the local campaign, Sir Keir said: “I hope we can launch a different campaign here today.

“But the Prime Minister has it bottled. He wants to take one last long summer trip in his beloved helicopter. So – we need to send him another message.”

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt has previously suggested that a general election could be held in October.Meanwhile, Downing Street sources revealed independent The date is October 10 and the Prime Minister does not want to wait until mid-November to avoid conflicting with the US presidential election.

Speculation has grown in recent days that Sunak could call a summer election as he lamented inheriting “the worst hospital passes of any new prime minister in decades” from predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss “.

Times Radio talks to former Conservative leader William Hague story Mr Sunak told the podcast: “There’s a lot of frustration. We’ve been through a lot as a country over the last few years and people are understandably frustrated by it and it’s made the environment a lot trickier.”

But when asked about pollster guru Professor Sir John Curtis’ prediction of just a 1% chance of the Conservatives winning the next election, Mr Sunak added: “We’ve had a lot of predictions about elections and referendums over the last few years. .” This turned out to be wrong. So we should always remember this. “