BORIS Johnson is laying the groundwork for an election this year as he plans to meet top polling guru Sir Lynton Crosby.
The PM had plans to meet the Australian elections expert who worked on David Cameron and Theresa May’s campaigns, the Guardian revealed.
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But the paper claims the meeting between the pair – who have long been friendly -has been taken out of his diary after advisers started fighting to be there.
Sir Lynton worked on Boris’ mayoral election campaigns.
Last Friday one of Boris’ top aides, Dominic Cummings, told special advisers they had a week to come up with election ideas.
One aide said they’d been asked to compile policy suggestions and come up with a list of what they’d achieved too.
They said: “The tone [on whether or not to go to the polls] was: this is not in our gift any more. Come back with some policy ideas that we can deploy in an election.”
And he reportedly said he wanted to “smash Jeremy Corbyn” if the Tories were dragged to the polls.
The PM has repeatedly said he doesn’t want an election but since coming into office he’s made a series of high-profile announcements on election-friendly issues like the NHS, police and crime.
And more are set to come in the following weeks too.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said Labour expects an election in either October or November this year.
If Boris loses a vote of no confidence when Parliament comes back next month, then he will have 14 days to win it back before an election is called.
Some think that Boris could choose to have a poll after October 31, and take Britain out without a deal.
Who is Sir Lynton Crosby?
SIR Lynton Crosby is an Australian polling guru who the Tories have had help them to run several campaigns.
He helped out both David Cameron and Theresa May on their elections.
The Sun revealed how he was paid £4million to run the last PM’s disasterous snap poll back in 2017.
His company CTF Partners charged mega-bucks on polling, focus groups and call-centres.
Back in June Sir Lynton said the next Tory leader must give the British people a “sense of hope” and be “someone of character”.
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He’s set to jet off to Paris and Berlin for talks with EU leaders, before a G7 summit where he’ll meet President Trump too.
The PM says he still wants to get a deal but he won’t re-start talks until Brussels agrees to drop the hated Northern Irish backstop.
Yesterday No10 lashed out at Remainer scare stories about a No Deal Brexit, saying they were deliberately leaked to discredit the Government.
And they claimed the reports – which included Project Fear stories about shortages of food in the event we leave without a deal – were old anyway.
100 MPs have demanded that Parliament be recalled to find a solution to the Brexit crisis.
Politicians aren’t due back in Westminster for another two weeks.
Boris is visiting a hospital in Cornwall today as he continues his tour of the country since getting into No10.
He’ll demand social media chiefs remove measles scare stories as vaccination rates were revealed to have dropped.
He will announce he is hauling in tech bosses to a summit to order them to do more to end fake news about immunisation risks.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has accused anti-vaxxers of having “blood on their hands”.
Jeremy Corbyn today will make a key speech in battleground Corby – where he will again demand a general election to try and stop the Brexit crisis.
He will promise to do “everything necessary” to stop the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
His first choice plan is to try and seize power with a vote of no confidence in Boris’ government.
And then he hopes to steal power with a caretaker administration – where he’ll seek an extension to Article 50, another election and THEN a referendum.
But Mr McDonnell said Labour were also open to other plans, including on a new law to stop a No Deal.
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