Burnham has ruled out an early election amid speculation (Alamy)
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The Prime Minister has said he can “knock dead” speculation of an early election, claiming that the move would be “self-serving politics”.
Andy Burnham’s comments come ahead of Labour Party conference in Liverpool as the party is riding high on a recent boost in the polls, widely labelled “the Burnham bounce”.
A YouGov poll published this week revealed that Labour would return the most MPs to Westminster if an election were to be called tomorrow, but would still not achieve a majority.
Burnham said that his conference speech next week would set out the “direction I want to take the country in the coming period”.
While speculation regarding the possibility of Burnham calling an early election had been swirling in recent days, Burnham was keen to correct the record.
Asked by ITV Calendar whether the next general election would be in 2029, Burnham said: “Well, yes, that’s when the next election will be. All of this speculation on an early election, I can knock that dead.”
Burnham went on to say that the public would want him to be “getting on with the job of delivering…rather than putting self-serving politics before that, which was what I would be doing if I call an election. I am not going to do that.”
In a separate interview with BBC West, Burnham said his priority was to get people “feeling a bit of hope in their lives again”, rather than “putting people back into an election cycle”.