General election result is not a foregone conclusion, says Sunak

LONDON: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said the general election result is not a “foregone conclusion” despite disastrous local election results and the Tories struggling to close the gap with Labour in the polls.

The prime minister said he was “absolutely determined to fight” in the run-up to polling day to show the government was making a difference to people’s lives on issues including the economy and migration.

Despite Tory plotters warning that a poor set of local results could be a moment of peak danger for Sunak, Tory rebels have laid down their arms after admitting they have not persuaded enough MPs to join them to force a vote of confidence in his leadership.

Yet many of Sunak’s MPs are despondent about the party’s chances of retaining power at the general election, expected this autumn, despite the government’s attempts to spin the local results as showing a hung parliament is likely.

The prime minister’s comments came after he seized on analysis by the polling expert Michael Thrasher over the weekend that claimed the local results showed Labour only had a nine-point lead.

Other leading figures have cautioned against reading too much into local election data, however. Prof Sir John Curtice, the pre-eminent psephologist, said on Monday: “We decided not to do it, frankly, partly because it wasn’t necessarily the most reliable piece of information.”

Ben Page, the chief executive of Ipsos Mori, was more direct about the prospect of a hung parliament, saying: “I think it’s for the birds.”During a visit to a community centre in north London on Sunday, Sunak doubled down on his theory that no individual party would hold a majority after the election – the first time he has admitted the Tories may not win outright.