Rishi Sunak changes gear as UK election loom

The pace is quickening. The collective heart rate of Westminster is notching up.

The summit - a general election - is in sight, even if the time it'll take to reach it is still guesswork.

There has to be an election by the end of January 2025 at the absolute latest.

"I think it's going to be May!" one former cabinet minister confided to me, suggesting the broad Westminster consensus that the election is most likely to be in autumn 2024 might be wrong.

In truth, the precise timing will be decided by the prime minister and a tiny group of people around him; his best man turned political secretary James Forsyth, his chief of staff Liam Booth Smith and election strategist Issac Levido perhaps among a very limited few.

And they have no reason to have decided for certain yet anyway.

Stuff that is yet to happen could still play a big part in when polling day actually is.

But the gradient is steepening, the air is increasingly rarefied.

You can smell it, feel it, see it around Westminster.

And the same will be true at the party conferences, starting with the gathering of Liberal Democrats in Bournemouth this weekend.

Rishi Sunak's shift on green policies - revealed first by the BBC - felt like a beacon marking out this change.

Conservative campaign headquarters had been primed in advance and had their social media messaging ready to go, even if the leak to the BBC played havoc with their plans for 24 hours.

But there are other flashing lights wherever you look.

Not only was the man who is miles ahead in the polls glad-handing the president of France.

But when Sky News pointed out that Labour leader Keir Starmer had said "we don't want to diverge" from the European Union if he becomes prime minister, cabinet minister Michael Gove was out in front of a camera having a pop at him within an hour or so.

Where a secretary of state instantly pounced on arguably rather loose language from Sir Keir, other cabinet ministers quickly followed suit.

The speed of the reaction was another illustration of campaign machines cranking up a gear.

So what happens next?

Three sentences from Rishi Sunak the other day sketch out a map for him for the months ahead.

He said: "The real choice confronting us is do we really want to change our country and build a better future for our children, or do we want to carry on as we are? I have made my decision: we are going to change. And over the coming months, I will set out a series of long-term decisions to deliver that change."

The context is this: the prime minister has steadied things, the government isn't about to collapse, but the Conservative party is in a massive hole in the opinion polls, and so is Mr Sunak himself.

A new poll for YouGov suggests he is personally more unpopular than at any time since he became prime minister.

And No10 has concluded it is time to be more aggressive. As I wrote a few weeks ago, that has involved beefing up the team at the top.