{"id":52553,"date":"2024-05-23T15:36:15","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T05:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abnews.com.au\/?p=52553"},"modified":"2024-05-23T15:36:15","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T05:36:15","slug":"uk-pm-sunak-calls-general-election-for-july-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/?p=52553","title":{"rendered":"UK PM Sunak calls general election for July 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday set a general election date for July 4, ending months of speculation but not doom-laden forecasts about the size of the government&#8217;s expected defeat.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The poll will be the first time Sunak, 44, faces the public while in charge, after he was appointed leader of the largest party in parliament by<br \/>\nConservative MPs in October 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The vote &#8212; the third since the Brexit referendum in 2016 &#8212; comes as Sunak seeks to capitalise on better economic data to woo voters hit by cost-of-living rises.<\/p>\n<p>Halving inflation within a year from historic highs of above 11 percent at the end of 2022 was one of the former financier&#8217;s five key pledges.<\/p>\n<p>That happened last year and on Wednesday rates slowed to a near three-year low at 2.3 percent in March, prompting finance minister Jeremy Hunt to declare: &#8220;This is proof that the plan is working.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sunak, in a Downing Street statement made in driving rain after he gathered his top ministers, said he had spoken to head of state King Charles III and requested the dissolution of parliament.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The king has granted this request and we will have a general election on July 4,&#8221; he said, adding: &#8220;Now is the moment for Britain to choose its future.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday set a general election date for July 4, ending months of speculation but not doom-laden forecasts about the size of the government&#8217;s expected defeat. The poll will be the first time Sunak, 44, faces the public while in charge, after he was appointed leader of the largest party [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1563],"class_list":["post-52553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","tag-uk-pm-sunak-calls-general-election-for-july-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}