Rishi Sunak’s decision to call a general election now is bizarre - Yorkshire Post Letters

Prime Minister Sunak surprised most people by calling a July election, with the minimum required notice of six weeks.

A few days on, after due reflection, the decision seems stranger and stranger with the prime question, 'Why so soon?'

It is widely believed that Mr Sunak was keen to complete two years in office; a few more months would have ensured that.

He has emphasised the importance to himself of introducing his age-related tobacco legislation, which will now be lost.

Of greater personal importance was the Rwanda scheme, which he appears simply to have abandoned to Keir Starmer's promise to scrap it; both these two ambitions could have been realised within another two months or so.

We have been given broad hints that chancellor Jeremy Hunt was planning certain favourable tax adjustments in the autumn, which are now also lost.

Can all these factors indicate that there are other reasons for the haste?

The local elections revealed that there were numbers of people who did not understand the identity requirement to vote; this will need some considerable time to rectify.

Early July marks the end of the university academic year, and tens of thousands of students will be uncertain of where to register to vote; this will probably impact more on the Labour vote than the Conservative.

An uncertain number of existing Conservative MPs have indicated that they will not stand again, and it is believed that others as yet undeclared will follow suit; far better to permit any further desertions to be discreet rather than overt.

Could it be that internal party economic predictions indicate that the apparent beneficial moves of the last couple of months will prove to be mere blips, and that in reality, recession and depression loom on the economic horizon?

The final thought is that possibly Mr Sunak's own party polling has indicated that the party gap is about to widen and that his only hope is to cut and run as soon as possible.

None of these thoughts goes anywhere to answering the basic question of 'What's the big rush?'