Based on? We had Growth the last time we had a Labour government. The ineptitude at every level of the current Tory party is staggering. Added to the rampant nepotism and other forms of corruption, I'd argue it's virtually impossible for any Labour government to do any worse.
Local elections typically are (and sometimes general elections are timed at the same time). And they probably would have stuck with May general elections if they'd kept the Fixed Term Parliaments act that they rolled out after 2010 and then decided they didn't want.
But by convention the government has always been able to choose the timing of the election, now up to a maximum of five years which was the length set in 1911. (World War II was an exception.)
The 2019 election was in December. Boris needed and got an act of parliament to be allowed to call that one, and the Fixed Term Parliament Act was repealed afterwards.
So now there must be an election by mid-January 2025 at the latest (since it has to be called by 11th December 2024 at the latest and there's a fixed period of campaigning after that).
I think Sunak will conclude that his best chance of winning next time is to push it as late as possible; he has little to lose at the moment. A December or January election is always a risk when you're relying on older voters, but on the other hand you might be able to interfere with students voting if you pick the time they are going home. Though that could be quite late in 2024 because of where the weekends fall in December.
