Sunak All but Rules out Spring Poll as Starmer Seeks to Make Election About the Economy

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has almost ruled out the prospect of a spring general election, as Labour’s leader, Sir Keir Starmer, told an audience in Bristol he wanted to make the economy the number one issue. When the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, cut national insurance rates in the Budget in November, there was speculation Mr. Sunak might be aiming for a spring general election. But on Thursday, Mr. Sunak, who was meeting voters in the former mining town of Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, told broadcasters, “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.”...