Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to end weeks of speculation by announcing he will not call an early general election, reports said Saturday in a move likely to be seized on by opposition parties.
Sky News television and the BBC both said Brown was set to kill the recent frenzy of election talk by making a statement that an early vote will not be held in November, as widely speculated.
The BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson, who like his counterpart at Sky News, Adam Boulton, was poised outside Brown's office in Downing Street, said he understood a vote may not be held for another two years.
"We are expecting the prime minister to confirm himself ... that he's not going to proceed with an election this year, indeed that there won't be an election next year and that he's not looking at an election before 2009," he added. There was no immediate response from Brown's Downing Street office nor any indication of when a statement would be made.
In theory, Brown has until May 2010 at the latest to call a general election but speculation has been rife about an early vote because of recent buoyant polls suggesting a healthy lead for his governing Labour Party.