Rishi Sunak laughs as he is grilled on This Morning about Tory election probabilities

Rishi Sunak laughed as he was grilled on the timing of the subsequent normal election and whether or not the Tories would win it on ITV’s This Morning.

Appearing on the couch, the PM was quizzed by host Rylan Clark when viewers would subsequent head to the poll field as polls present the Tories trailing behind Labour. The Tory chief laughed because the presenter requested: “You’re a very busy man, running the country. Autumn election – when’s it happening, what’s going on, are you going to win it?”

Mr Sunak replied: “I’ve said what I’ve said, on the timing. We’ve been very clear – we’ve been through a tough time over the last year as a country. I really believe – the start of this year – we’ve turned a corner and we’re heading in the right direction. You can see that most obviously with the economy.”

Pressed once more on when This Morning viewers could be heading to the polls, he mentioned: “Well that I’ve already said – the working assumption about that.” Earlier this month the PM mentioned it was his “working assumption” the subsequent normal election would happen within the second half of 2024 – however nonetheless has the choice of a spring election.

Asked whether or not he was feeling “confident”, he added: “I am. Absolutely.” It got here as the most recent ballot gave Keir Starmer’s Labour a 22-point lead and warnings in current week the Tories face a wipeout defeat on an analogous scale to 1997. Just final week one senior Tory MP urged his colleagues to oust the PM to stop “annihilation” on the subsequent election in a brutal assault on his management.

During the looks on ITV’s This Morning, the PM additionally insisted the federal government doesn’t “have a magic money tree” when challenged over putting junior docs. Speaking from the This Morning couch, the Prime Minister mentioned “it is disappointing” that junior docs “said no” to a proposal of an “on average 10% pay rise”.

He mentioned: “A million other NHS workers have all actually come to a reasonable agreement with the Government. Every other bit of the public sector has come to a reasonable agreement. I think what we’ve done is fair, it’s reasonable, it’s been endorsed by an independent body.” When it was put to him that resolving the pay dispute would increase his probabilities within the election, Mr Sunak mentioned: “My job is to do what’s right in the country in the long term.”