Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appears to have ruled out holding a general election this spring after coming under pressure to call a vote soon.
On a visit to Mansfield on Thursday, Mr Sunak said he did not anticipate the poll being held until the second half of the year.
“So my working assumption is we'll have a general election in the second half of this year and in the meantime I've got lots that I want to get on with,” he said.
Mr Sunak dangled the prospect of future tax cuts and attacked Keir Starmer's green proposals as the two leaders set out their stalls at the start of the election year.
“I want to keep going, managing the economy well and cutting people's taxes,” the Prime Minister said. “But I also want to keep tackling illegal migration.
“So I've got lots to get on with and I'm determined to keep delivering for the British people.”
Labour has claimed that a spring vote is the “worst-kept secret in Parliament” in a possible ploy to claim Mr Sunak has bottled it if he goes on longer.
The Liberal Democrats have also been calling for Mr Sunak to hold the vote in May rather than trying to “cling on” to power for the rest of the year.
Mr Sunak has until January 2025 to hold the election.
Waiting gives him more time to turn around the Tories' dire polling, but also risks another summer of migrant small boat crossings as he struggles to get the Rwanda policy off the ground.
The Conservatives' and Labour's election campaigns were well under way on Thursday, as the party leaders visited battleground areas.
Making a speech at a research facility near Bristol, Mr Starmer said people are “right to be anti-Westminster and angry about what politics has become” in his opening pitch of the year to voters.
Lashing out at what he called a culture of kickbacks, revolving doors and fast lanes for the politically connected, Mr Starmer referred to his time as the country's chief prosecutor to declare his rise to No 10 Downing Street would mean a “total crackdown on cronyism”.
The Labour leader urged the public to “hold on to hope” as he asked them to “believe in it again”.
“I will say you’re right to be anti-Westminster, right to be angry about what politics has become,” he said.
“But hold on to any flickering hope in your heart that things can be better, because they can. You can choose it,” he said.
“You can reject the pointless populist gestures and the low-road cynicism that the Tories believe is all you deserve.
“That’s all they have left now after 14 years, with nothing good to show, no practical achievements to point towards, no purpose beyond the fight to save their own skins.
“They can’t change Britain, so they try to undermine the possibility of change itself.”
The latest a general election can be called is Tuesday, January 28, 2025. But Mr Sunak previously told journalists the vote would be held this year.
Admitting he “hated the futility of opposition”, Mr Starmer said he is ready for the opportunity to lead the country.
“I've been working for this for four years, working for the chance to tilt this country firmly and decisively back towards the interests of working people. It's been a long, hard slog and I won't lie,” he said.
He promised a new plan with new priorities, five national missions which he said would “sweep away the era of Tory division”.
“A plan for the long term, with higher growth, a reformed planning system, no longer blocking the homes, infrastructure and investment we need,” he said.
“Safer streets, more police in your town, cracking down on antisocial behaviour,” the Labour leader added.
Keir Starmer through the years – in pictures
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Keir Starmer has been the Labour party's leader since 2020, and is now the UK's prime minister. Here The National looks back through his political career. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer speaking in Westminster, London, in May after Rishi Sunak announced the general election for July 4. AP -
Mr Starmer speaks to Labour supporters at Harlow Town Football Club's stadium in Essex, on the eve of local elections in May. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer talks to Dan Poulter at the Francis Crick Institute in London in April, after the MP had defected from the Conservative Party to Labour. Getty Images -
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Mr Starmer during the launch of Mr Khan's mayoral re-election campaign in March, which proved successful. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer addresses the Labour Business Conference in London in February. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer and Mr Sunak at the Palace of Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament in November 2023. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer addresses delegates at the National Annual Women's Conference in Liverpool in October 2023. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer with his shadow cabinet in London in September 2023. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer speaks to supporters in Chatham after a Labour win in local elections in May 2023. Getty Images -
Joining party activists at a national phone bank on local elections day in London in May 2023. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer meets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Speaker's House in the Palace of Westminster, London, in February 2023. Getty Images -
The Labour leader and his wife Victoria leave the stage after his speech at the party conference in Liverpool in September 2022. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer and then-UK prime minister Liz Truss leave the Palace of Westminster in September 2022. Getty Images -
With former Labour prime ministers Tony Blair, centre, and Gordon Brown, right, at St James's Palace, London, where King Charles III was formally proclaimed monarch in September 2022. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer and then-prime minister Boris Johnson attend the State Opening of Parliament in May 2022. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer makes his keynote speech to the Labour conference for the first time as party leader in September 2021 in Brighton. Getty Images -
The gloves are on during a visit to the Vulcan Boxing Club in Hull, East Yorkshire, in April 2021. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer in talks with care home workers and family members of residents at Cafe 1899 in Gedling Country Park during the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer, then-shadow secretary of state for exiting the EU, addresses the audience at a hustings in March 2020 in Dudley. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer and then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn talk to the media at the EU Commission headquarters in March 2019 in Brussels. Getty Images -
Mr Starmer delivers a speech on Labour's Brexit policy at the Institute of Civil Engineers in London in April 2017. Getty Images -
Holding a press conference as Director of Public Prosecutions to outline new guidelines on assisted suicide, in London in September 2009. Getty Images -
Human rights advisers Mr Starmer and Jane Gordon with the Northern Ireland Policing Board annual human rights report 2006, at the Dunadry Hotel in Co Antrim. Getty Images
Mr Starmer said he would get the NHS back on its feet, “with a plan to cut the waiting lists paid for by removing the non dom tax status”.
“Two million more appointments every year in an NHS clearing the backlog seven days a week,” he added.
Ahead of the speech, the Conservatives sought to suggest Mr Starmer was prone to reversing decisions.
Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden said: “Nothing is more cynical and populist than a weathervane Labour leader who has a consistent track record of telling people whatever he thinks they want to hear on any given day.
“He was for a second Brexit referendum, then he wasn't. He told Labour members when he was running to be leader he would nationalise industry and scrap tuition fees, but then dropped these policies as soon as the contest was over. And he says he opposes Jeremy Corbyn now, despite campaigning twice to make him prime minister and calling him his 'friend'.
“The only thing we know for certain about Keir Starmer is that he has a £28 billion black hole in his spending promises which will mean thousands of pounds of tax rises every year for families.”
