Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is readying the party for a December election, she revealed today - as a new poll put Reform on course to win fewer seats than the Conservatives or Labour.

Mrs Badenoch said Andy Burnham was a 'gambler' who wanted a fresh mandate to tax and spend more taxpayers' money if he won. 

She is the latest figure to suggest an election is not far away as speculation mounts that the Prime Minister could go to the country well ahead of the 2029 deadline.

Speaking to LBC radio, Mrs Badenoch said: 'I think he might fancy his chances, but we fancy ours as well.'

She added: 'I've said that if he cannot fund defence, which he needs to fund by cutting welfare, then he should call an election. That's why John Healey resigned. He said the money that was going into defence was not enough.' 

But an election would be a risk for all the main parties. A major YouGov analysis shows Reform would be only the third-largest party at Westminster if an election was held today, having been the largest party in a similar poll last year. 

The findings suggest an election now would result in a hung parliament, with Labour losing 170 seats.

While it would still have the most MPs, it would be short of a majority unless Mr Burnham could put together an unlikely 'rainbow coalition' with the Liberal Democrats, Greens and the Scottish National Party.

It came as Mrs Badenoch unveiled a new Tory policy to cut the welfare bill by preventing claimants from spending their money on alcohol, cigarettes and gambling.

The Tory leader dismissed suggestions that the state should not decide what welfare claimants can and cannot spend their benefits on.

Asked whether her plan was 'too paternalistic' and 'infantilising' welfare claimants, Mrs Badenoch shot back: 'But it's not their money, it's taxpayers' money.'

'This is the thing that we keep forgetting,' Mrs Badenoch told GB News.

'The state's not telling any of us how to spend the money we earn, but if people are being given taxpayers' money to survive, then we don't want them gambling with it.' 

If the Conservatives were to win their projected 130 seats, it would be a nine-seat improvement on the party’s performance at the 2024 general election, when it lost its majority in the House of Commons.

The polling suggests Reform UK, which currently has eight MPs, would still make significant gains to finish with 123 seats.

With 253 seats between them, a Conservative-Reform UK coalition would fail to pass the 326-seat bar for a majority in the House of Commons.

YouGov’s modelling - using multilevel regression and poststratification - also showed Labour would be the largest party with 241 seats, with the Liberal Democrats on 71, SNP on 40, Plaid Cymru on 15 and the Green Party on nine. 

It also stressed that in more than a third of seats (37 per cent), the winning margin is less than five points, meaning they could go either way. 

But In Reform targets this rises to 67 per cent, making them highly vulnerable to tactical voting. 

Mrs Badenoch also raised the prospect of an early election forcing a second within months.

Ruling out a Tory coalition with either Reform or the Lib Dems she said: 'It's been done before, 1974. We had two elections. We had two elections in one year. 

'But what I saw with the coalition 2010 to 2015 was actually us not being able to deliver many of the things that we promised people because we made concessions to the Lib Dems and nobody thanked us for it later. 

'We need to be able to deliver what we promise to the public, and I am very keen to show that you can actually go into politics, say you're going to do something, and deliver it. 

'Right now, in this era of multi-party politics and concessions and deals behind closed doors, I just think that the public don't know what they're going to get. 

'If you want Conservative policies, then please vote Conservative. Gaining it in any other way is just going to create chaos.'

Meanwhile Reform's Richard Tice insisted his party would be ready for an election whenever it happened.

After the party raked in £72million from two crypto-billionaires he said: 'The good news is we've raised the money. So now we're cracking on with selecting candidates and we're getting ready. 

'And in the Labour heartlands, there is no love for a government and a Labour party that, frankly, is taking the country towards ruin. Ever higher taxes, ever higher welfare bills, people getting poorer.'

Asked about a coalition with the Tories in the face of tactical voting against his party, he said: 'We're pushing our own policies forward and everybody else can do what they want. And voters can then make their decisions. 

'But week in, week out, when you look at the council by-elections, the Tory vote is collapsing and we're consistently polling somewhat above our national average. That's what matters when people actually go to the ballot box.'

Opposition to Reform gaining power appears to be hardening in the UK, with voters increasingly willing to try to block Nigel Farage from entering No10. 

New analysis of tactical voting suggests the public are growing more likely to consider a 'stop Reform' candidate in their area, especially if they are Labour or Conservative.

YouGov data last night showed that if a seat was a toss-up between Labour and Reform, Labour would win 41 per cent of the vote to Reform's 26 per cent, with the gap widening by 11 points since February.

Additionally, the data from 6,077 people suggests Reform loses in head-to-head battles with the Conservatives by a similar 15-point margin, 35 per cent to 20 per cent, with the gap widening by eight points in seven months.

Mr Farage's party also loses a head-to-head against the Lib Dems by an increased margin, and against the Greens, despite Zack Polanski's party also suffering a drop in popularity.

It comes after Mr Burnham replaced Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister and follows a raft of controversies surrounding Reform and its finances, including record-breaking donations totalling £72million from two crypto-billionaires.