The news that Jeremy Hunt will deliver next year’s budget on 6 March sparked a fresh round of speculation that Rishi Sunak may be intending a spring election. But it nonetheless seems extraordinarily unlikely.

Look to history. Historically, the fifth year of a parliament tends to be used only by governments that know they’re on the way out – Gordon Brown held out until 2010, John Major until 1997. There is always the hope that something will turn up, and an understandable reluctance on the part of politicians, too, to give up a year in office.

On top of that, Sunak has been in No 10 for just a year and a bit. The government may seem to everyone else to already be in extra time, but it won’t feel that way in Downing Street. An autumn election would give him two years on the job, the first of which (one might argue) was spent steadying the ship after Liz Truss.

Thus, an October or November election remains the most reasonable baseline scenario: late enough to make use of the time remaining in this parliament, but not so late as to ruin Christmas and drag voters to the polls in January.

Despite that, however, we keep getting straws........

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