Next General Election: Autumn vote backed after Sunak says it will be second half of 2024

• Election in October - December is clear favourite

• Labour majority is 76% chance on Betfair Exchange

• Tories shorter than 2/13.00 to lose 200+ seats

The odds on an autumn UK general election shortened to 1.412/5 after Rishi Sunak said he expected it would take place in the second half of 2024.

Speculation has mounted for months about whether the prime minister would call the general election for spring or autumn.

On the Exchange an election in the period October to December is 1.412/5 following Sunak's statement, while April to June is out to 6.05/1.

The latter option was around evens over Christmas after the chancellor Jeremy Hunt scheduled a budget for March. This was interpreted as a sign by some commentators that the government would go to the electorate in the spring.

That changed today when Sunak said: "My working assumption is we'll have a general election in the second half of this year."

When he was asked to rule out a spring election he merely repeated that he was planning for a vote in the second half of 2024.

That means politics bettors could have a UK general election and US presidential election to get involved in come the autumn.

Labour majority 76% chance on Betfair Exchange

The Conservatives may wait as long as possible before holding the election in the hope that they can improve their polling.

In some polls they trail Labour by as many as 20 points.

On the Exchange a Labour majority at the next general election is 1.3130/100 - a 76% chance. No over all majority is 5.79/2.

The Conservatives are out to 14.527/2 to win a majority and look likely to come under attack from the right of the political spectrum from the new Reform UK Party.

Reform UK target Tory seats at general election

Reform UK is the latest party for disgruntled Brexiteers. It is lead by Richard Tice and was co-founded by Nigel Farage, although it is not clear yet what role Farage will play for Reform at the next general election.

There were reports this week that Tory MPs were begging Reform not to stand candidates in their constituencies. The threat to the Tories is that Reform will take the votes of right-wingers who are fed up with the government.

The Conservatives are 2.727/4 to lose 200 or more seats and the emergence of Reform UK may make that more likely.

Labour, meanwhile, are taking nothing for granted and this week Keir Starmer said he feared voter apathy could prevent them from winning.

The Betfair Exchange odds indicate that Starmer is being overly-pessimistic. He is 1.251/4 to be the UK's next prime minister.

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