The Defence Secretary has given a clear indication to Sky's Adam Boulton that the General Election will be held on May 6.
"I think the British public will wake up and rue the day if they wind up with a Conservative government in charge of this country after May 6," Bob Ainsworth said.
Bookmaker Coral suspended betting on date of the election.
Spokesman David Stevens said: "The month of May had been the odds-on favourite prior to Bob Ainsworth's comments on Sky News, and his mention of May 6th as the crucial date was enough for us to close the book."
Mr Ainsworth is not the first minister to appear to give away the date of the election.
Earlier this month Europe Minister Chris Bryant told diplomats discussing recent tensions between Britain and countries including Venezuela: "I hope that by the time of the general election on May 6, relations will have improved."
Later, he told Sky News that he had "no idea" when the election would be.
Sky's political correspondent Joey Jones said: "It's the sort of mistake all ministers are hoping to avoid at present.
"Of course they are aware the likely date of the election is the 6th May, but the final decision rests with Gordon Brown on this one, and Bob Ainsworth is as aware of that as anyone else."
The last possible date the General Election can be held is June 3. However, the Tories are preparing for one as early as March.
Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove told Adam Boulton it was a decision for the Prime Minister but added: "The sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned."
We have the General Election and then the Football World Cup, so it should be a fun few months providing you are interested in the UK General Election and football.
I was going to do a poll. Should it be "Who do you want to be Prime Minister" with the two candidates (or three); or "Which party will you vote for?" with a list of all the parties?
Favorite Bond Movie: Moonraker Goldfinger The Spy Who Loved Me
Favorite Movies: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Crazy For Christmas, The Empire Strikes Back, League of Gentlemen (1960's British film), Big Trouble in Little China, Police Academy 2, Carry On At Your Convenience, Commando, Halloween III: Season of the Witch,
Skywalker wrote:I watched the Brown interview with Piers Morgan and thought he came across quite well. I'd never really took to the guy before.
Brown or Morgan?
I was referring to the man once described by Jeremy Clarkson as a ‘one eyed idiot’. I think Piers is very good at interviewing and is not afraid to ask difficult questions. Far better than most chat shows which are just a promotional tour for the celebrities to plug their new venture.
“I'd like to thank the Royal Marines for bringing me in like that and scaring the s--- out of me,” Bond Hardman Daniel Craig.
They were talking on Mock the Week about that ad campaign and how it was just begging to be spoofed. Glad to see you've taken up the challenge. Did you create that spoof, or did you find it on the Internet?
"He's the one that doesn't smile" - Queen Elizabeth II on Daniel Craig
Favorite Bond Movie: Moonraker Goldfinger The Spy Who Loved Me
Favorite Movies: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Crazy For Christmas, The Empire Strikes Back, League of Gentlemen (1960's British film), Big Trouble in Little China, Police Academy 2, Carry On At Your Convenience, Commando, Halloween III: Season of the Witch,
David Cameron will not win a general election outright and will struggle to form a government, according to Lord Heseltine.
The party grandee stunned activists by claiming that history was against Mr Cameron’s hopes of securing an overall majority.
Instead, the former deputy prime minister said he would "put money" on a hung parliament, with the Tories the largest party. Mr Cameron would then be forced to call a second election later this year to seek a proper mandate to govern.
His comments, at a meeting of party members in west London, reflect a growing anxiety among the leadership about the size of the task they still face to secure outright victory.
The results of a YouGov poll show the Tory lead narrowing to six points. A separate poll shows Mr Cameron’s personal lead over Gordon Brown has been halved in the past six months.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister put Labour on an election footing with a combative speech urging voters to give him "a second look".
He was confident that his party would narrow the gap in the polls as MPs hit the doorsteps in anticipation of a May 6 election.
Lord Heseltine, who is Mr Cameron’s adviser on cities, said at a fund-raising event last Tuesday that he did not think that the party’s lead would grow enough between now and polling day to give it a working majority.
Activists at the event, which was attended by senior Tories including Francis Maude, the shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, expressed surprise at the pessimistic message.
Asked to elaborate on his comments, Lord Heseltine told The Sunday Telegraph: "The Tories are running around 10 points ahead in the polls, which should give you a very big overall majority in most of the post-war world, but at this moment it gives you an overall majority of one.
"Once you know that, you know the Tories must adopt a totally determined view — there’s no room for complacency, it’s a hell of a battle.
"You need a swing for which there is only one sensible post-war precedent," he said, referring to Labour’s win in 1997 when a 10.3 per cent swing earned a landslide 179 majority. "Tony Blair was further ahead in the polls in 97," said Lord Heseltine. "If I was a betting man, my money would be on the election resulting in a hung parliament with David Cameron as Prime Minister."
Asked if Mr Cameron would be able to govern, he said: "I think you won’t see a full parliament, that’s for sure. There are a range of people who are supporting the Labour Party who would never have supported it over the 1960s or 70s. People think I’m being cautious, but that’s not a bad place to be. "
A Tory spokesman said: "We are determined to win this election with a clear majority but Lord Heseltine is right that the swing needed to do so is significant.
"David Cameron has repeatedly said that we need to gain 117 seats to win a majority and that hasn’t happened since 1931. That’s why we are doing everything we can to set out the choice ahead of the election."
Lord Heseltine’s caution would appear to be borne out by research by PoliticsHome.com, which shows Mr Cameron’s personal ratings falling at an increasing rate.
When voters were asked in September whether they thought he was doing a good or a bad job, Mr Cameron scored a positive performance rating of 36. That rating fell steadily until it was 12 by the second week of February. By contrast, Mr Brown’s performance rating was minus 55 in September last year and climbed to minus 33 by mid-February.
If the trend continued, Mr Cameron and Mr Brown would both have performance ratings of just below zero on May 6, the most likely date of a general election.
There is further bad news for the Tories today with the YouGov poll showing the party down one to 39 per cent and Labour up two to 33, the smallest gap since December 2008. The Liberal Democrats are on 17 per cent.
David Cameron will not win a general election outright and will struggle to form a government, according to Lord Heseltine.
The party grandee stunned activists by claiming that history was against Mr Cameron’s hopes of securing an overall majority.
Instead, the former deputy prime minister said he would "put money" on a hung parliament, with the Tories the largest party. Mr Cameron would then be forced to call a second election later this year to seek a proper mandate to govern.
His comments, at a meeting of party members in west London, reflect a growing anxiety among the leadership about the size of the task they still face to secure outright victory.
The results of a YouGov poll show the Tory lead narrowing to six points. A separate poll shows Mr Cameron’s personal lead over Gordon Brown has been halved in the past six months.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister put Labour on an election footing with a combative speech urging voters to give him "a second look".
He was confident that his party would narrow the gap in the polls as MPs hit the doorsteps in anticipation of a May 6 election.
Lord Heseltine, who is Mr Cameron’s adviser on cities, said at a fund-raising event last Tuesday that he did not think that the party’s lead would grow enough between now and polling day to give it a working majority.
Activists at the event, which was attended by senior Tories including Francis Maude, the shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, expressed surprise at the pessimistic message.
Asked to elaborate on his comments, Lord Heseltine told The Sunday Telegraph: "The Tories are running around 10 points ahead in the polls, which should give you a very big overall majority in most of the post-war world, but at this moment it gives you an overall majority of one.
"Once you know that, you know the Tories must adopt a totally determined view — there’s no room for complacency, it’s a hell of a battle.
"You need a swing for which there is only one sensible post-war precedent," he said, referring to Labour’s win in 1997 when a 10.3 per cent swing earned a landslide 179 majority. "Tony Blair was further ahead in the polls in 97," said Lord Heseltine. "If I was a betting man, my money would be on the election resulting in a hung parliament with David Cameron as Prime Minister."
Asked if Mr Cameron would be able to govern, he said: "I think you won’t see a full parliament, that’s for sure. There are a range of people who are supporting the Labour Party who would never have supported it over the 1960s or 70s. People think I’m being cautious, but that’s not a bad place to be. "
A Tory spokesman said: "We are determined to win this election with a clear majority but Lord Heseltine is right that the swing needed to do so is significant.
"David Cameron has repeatedly said that we need to gain 117 seats to win a majority and that hasn’t happened since 1931. That’s why we are doing everything we can to set out the choice ahead of the election."
Lord Heseltine’s caution would appear to be borne out by research by PoliticsHome.com, which shows Mr Cameron’s personal ratings falling at an increasing rate.
When voters were asked in September whether they thought he was doing a good or a bad job, Mr Cameron scored a positive performance rating of 36. That rating fell steadily until it was 12 by the second week of February. By contrast, Mr Brown’s performance rating was minus 55 in September last year and climbed to minus 33 by mid-February.
If the trend continued, Mr Cameron and Mr Brown would both have performance ratings of just below zero on May 6, the most likely date of a general election.
There is further bad news for the Tories today with the YouGov poll showing the party down one to 39 per cent and Labour up two to 33, the smallest gap since December 2008. The Liberal Democrats are on 17 per cent.
Are there really this many choices for a election in Briton ? I can't keep up with US politics except for we should vote the bums out. A universal sentiment here that never seems to be followed up on.
Skywalker wrote:
I was too busy re-painting the radiators then I watched them dry.
You missed a great days TV! I especially liked the BBC 1974 Election studio which looked like Moonbase Alpha from Space 1999.
Goldeneye
Are there really this many choices for a election in Briton
The leader of the party with the most MP's becomes the Prime Minister. Most people vote for Conservative or Labour and their leaders are the only ones with a realistic chance of being Prime Minister. But there are lots of other parties which people vote for so I added them!
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has confirmed that the UK general election will be held on 6 May.
Flanked by his entire cabinet, Mr Brown said it was the "least well-kept secret of recent years".
He said Britain was on the "road to recovery" and urged voters not to put it "at risk".
But David Cameron said the Conservative Party offered a "fresh start", while Lib Dem Nick Clegg said only his party offered "real change".
Mr Brown made the announcement outside Downing Street, after a 20-minute meeting with the Queen at Buckingham Palace to seek the dissolution of Parliament.
'Ordinary background'
The prime minister - who faces his first election as Labour leader - said he wanted a "clear and straightforward mandate" to continue the work of economic recovery.
He said he would be travelling the country telling voters: "Britain is on the road to recovery and nothing we do should put that recovery at risk."
And he added: "We will not allow 13 years of investment and reform in our public services, to build up the future of these great services, to be put at risk."
He also said he would produce a plan to make politics more transparent and accountable.
Stressing his "ordinary middle-class background" he said Labour would "fight for fairness at all times".
Mr Brown said: "We will say to the British people: 'Our cause is your cause'," before adding: "Let's go to it."
But Mr Cameron said he offered a "modern Conservative alternative" and his party offered "hope, optimism and change" and a "fresh start".
"It's the most important general election for a generation. It comes down to this. You don't have to put up with another five years of Gordon Brown."
He criticised 13 years of Labour's "big government" and said it was time for the Tories' "big society" instead. He pledged to work for the "great ignored", who he described as "honest hard-working people" who "do the right thing".
"Let's get off this road to ruin and instead get on the path to prosperity and progress," he said.
Lib Dem leader Mr Clegg said the election campaign would not be a "two-horse race" between the two biggest parties, and people were "crying out for something different".
"All bets are off," he said.
"This is a choice now between the old politics of the two old parties and something new, something different, which the Liberal Democrats offer."
It will be the first time that all three have led their respective parties into a general election - none was a party leader at the last one in 2005.
Hung Parliament
It will also be the first campaign to feature live television debates between the three main party leaders.
BBC, Sky and ITV announced the first 90-minute debates would be on ITV on Thursday 15 April, the next on Sky on 22 April and the last on the BBC on 29 April.
After the announcement, Mr Brown headed to St Pancras station to take a train to Kent to begin campaigning. He will start by meeting voters at a supermarket.
Mr Cameron will head to Yorkshire and Birmingham, and Mr Clegg will start his campaign in Watford.
The three main parties - along with a host of other smaller parties - will be fighting for 650 seats, four more than currently exist because of constituency boundary changes.
SNP leader Alex Salmond, the first minister of Scotland, hopes his party will win 20 seats at Westminster. He told the BBC the other parties had "blown the gaffe" by outlining plans for deep cuts.
"In these circumstances the need for Scotland to have national champions in the SNP is greater than ever before," he said.
'Old politics'
Meanwhile Plaid Cymru's director of elections, Helen Mary Jones, said it was time for the "worn-out government" to go: "We're asking the people of Wales to think about it this time.
"Do they really want more of the same old politics of boys yelling at each other, or do they really want a representative that can really listen to them?"
Both parties say they could end up holding the balance of power, if there is a hung parliament.
To secure an overall majority, a party must win at least 326 seats. If no party succeeds in doing so, the result will be a hung Parliament.
After 13 years in power, Labour enters the election with a notional majority of 48 seats, meaning that a loss of 24 seats would see them lose their overall majority.
Whatever the result, the make-up of the House of Commons will change significantly following the election, with 144 MPs so far having announced that they will stand down.
Parliament will not be officially dissolved until Monday 12 April - MPs will spend this week getting remaining legislation, that the parties can agree on, through Parliament - a process known as the "wash-up".
MPs will not return until Tuesday 18 May - later than the traditional start date of the week after the election - after a modernisation committee recommended there should be 12 days between the events, to allow for a proper induction for new MPs.
Opinion polls timed to coincide with the announcement all suggest a Conservative lead over Labour, by differing margins.
An ICM survey for the Guardian indicates the Tory lead has dropped to just four points, with the Conservatives on 37%, Labour on 33% and the Lib Dems on 21%.
However a YouGov poll in the Sun and another by Opinium for the Daily Express suggest the Tories have opened up a 10% lead - the margin David Cameron is likely to need in order to win an outright majority on 6 May. The Sun has the Tories on 41%, Labour on 31% and the Lib Dems on 18%. The Express reports a 39/29/17 split.
David Cameron will not win a general election outright and will struggle to form a government, according to Lord Heseltine.
The party grandee stunned activists by claiming that history was against Mr Cameron’s hopes of securing an overall majority.
Instead, the former deputy prime minister said he would "put money" on a hung parliament, with the Tories the largest party. Mr Cameron would then be forced to call a second election later this year to seek a proper mandate to govern.
His comments, at a meeting of party members in west London, reflect a growing anxiety among the leadership about the size of the task they still face to secure outright victory.
The results of a YouGov poll show the Tory lead narrowing to six points. A separate poll shows Mr Cameron’s personal lead over Gordon Brown has been halved in the past six months.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister put Labour on an election footing with a combative speech urging voters to give him "a second look".
He was confident that his party would narrow the gap in the polls as MPs hit the doorsteps in anticipation of a May 6 election.
Lord Heseltine, who is Mr Cameron’s adviser on cities, said at a fund-raising event last Tuesday that he did not think that the party’s lead would grow enough between now and polling day to give it a working majority.
Activists at the event, which was attended by senior Tories including Francis Maude, the shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, expressed surprise at the pessimistic message.
Asked to elaborate on his comments, Lord Heseltine told The Sunday Telegraph: "The Tories are running around 10 points ahead in the polls, which should give you a very big overall majority in most of the post-war world, but at this moment it gives you an overall majority of one.
"Once you know that, you know the Tories must adopt a totally determined view — there’s no room for complacency, it’s a hell of a battle.
"You need a swing for which there is only one sensible post-war precedent," he said, referring to Labour’s win in 1997 when a 10.3 per cent swing earned a landslide 179 majority. "Tony Blair was further ahead in the polls in 97," said Lord Heseltine. "If I was a betting man, my money would be on the election resulting in a hung parliament with David Cameron as Prime Minister."
Asked if Mr Cameron would be able to govern, he said: "I think you won’t see a full parliament, that’s for sure. There are a range of people who are supporting the Labour Party who would never have supported it over the 1960s or 70s. People think I’m being cautious, but that’s not a bad place to be. "
A Tory spokesman said: "We are determined to win this election with a clear majority but Lord Heseltine is right that the swing needed to do so is significant.
"David Cameron has repeatedly said that we need to gain 117 seats to win a majority and that hasn’t happened since 1931. That’s why we are doing everything we can to set out the choice ahead of the election."
Lord Heseltine’s caution would appear to be borne out by research by PoliticsHome.com, which shows Mr Cameron’s personal ratings falling at an increasing rate.
When voters were asked in September whether they thought he was doing a good or a bad job, Mr Cameron scored a positive performance rating of 36. That rating fell steadily until it was 12 by the second week of February. By contrast, Mr Brown’s performance rating was minus 55 in September last year and climbed to minus 33 by mid-February.
If the trend continued, Mr Cameron and Mr Brown would both have performance ratings of just below zero on May 6, the most likely date of a general election.
There is further bad news for the Tories today with the YouGov poll showing the party down one to 39 per cent and Labour up two to 33, the smallest gap since December 2008. The Liberal Democrats are on 17 per cent.
Favorite Bond Movie: Moonraker Goldfinger The Spy Who Loved Me
Favorite Movies: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Crazy For Christmas, The Empire Strikes Back, League of Gentlemen (1960's British film), Big Trouble in Little China, Police Academy 2, Carry On At Your Convenience, Commando, Halloween III: Season of the Witch,
I'm looking forward to our election in November and then to 2012 where MR Obama will get his walking papers!
Chief of Staff, 007's gone round the bend. Says someone's been trying to feed him a poisoned banana. Fellow's lost his nerve. Been in the hospital too long. Better call him home.
. That's a vote winner.
