Chris Wilkins - Director of Strategy and Chief Speechwriter, Number 10 Downing Street July 2016 – June 2017

And probably, in a sense the best plan, was to announce the election the day that we triggered and to go for it straight away, because we wanted the election to be on the same day as the local elections. [...] In a sense, the error for which I’m happy to take my part of the responsibility is that when we missed the opportunity to call the election so it could be held on the day of the local elections, we should have canned the whole idea. [...] Not having it on the same day as the locals was a disaster and having a seven week campaign, which was the natural consequence because of the way the electoral timetable then worked, was a disaster. [...] But having decided to go ahead, I genuinely think the strategy that was used for the election was completely wrong-headed and completely ran counter to months’ worth of polling and opinion research that we had done to get us to a point where we had the confidence to call it in the first place. [...] And I think the example of this was the way the Cabinet was formed and the constant juggling act and balancing act of who was where in the Cabinet.