A last gamble for a UK prime minister who has run out of road

A surprise election – or at least a semi-surprise – was Mr Rishi Sunak’s last card, and he has played it. And yet, like so many of the British Prime Minister’s gambits, this move is

a product of his political weakness.

It is the play of a man who has run out of ideas, run out of options, and sees no reason why his prospects might improve.

Ordinarily, a prime minister so far behind in the opinion polls does not rush to the country. Some close to Mr Sunak have long argued for an early vote, but the logical moment was to

hold it alongside the local elections in May.

Nor can those results have encouraged him: they were uniformly disastrous for his party.