London - The Cabinet Office Minister, Dr Mo Mowlam, appeared inadvertently to let slip the date of the general election during a television interview yesterday.
Pundits are almost unanimous in their prediction that the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, will call the poll for May next year.
Dr Mowlam yesterday indicated that she fully expected the vote to have been held by the start of summer 2001. Dr Mowlam announced in September that she would be stepping down from parliament at the next election, and Downing Street has indicated that she will remain in her ministerial role until then.
But on BBC1's On the Record yesterday, while discussing the shortage of drug treatment beds, she said: "By the middle of next year, I hope to be able to say to you if I am still here doing this - which I won't be - that this is a thing of the past."