RISHI SUNAK claimed today that the Tories can still win in Thursday’s vote — despite there being not the slightest sign of that happening.
“I think people are waking up to the real danger of what a Labour government means,” the Prime Minister said on TV.
His government enters what looks like the last week of its existence still 20 points adrift in a four-front electoral war.
The Conservatives face their date with the electorate haemorrhaging support to Labour, Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform party and the Liberal Democrats as well as abstentionism among their core vote.
The party’s strategy now seems to be focused on denying Labour the constitutionally nonsensical concept of a “supermajority” while maintaining the Tories as a viable parliamentary opposition.
Labour accumulated more ruling-class endorsements over the weekend, with elite magazine The Economist and Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times both coming out for Sir Keir Starmer’s party.
Campaign boss Pat McFadden urged the Sun — which Sir Keir once pledged not to speak to, an early casualty of his mendacity — to follow suit.
“I would like the Sun to endorse us,” Mr McFadden said, underlining Labour’s craven attitude to power.
Despite these Establishment thumbs-up, some polls are showing Labour support down in the high 30s: still far ahead of the Tories, the decisive factor in terms of parliamentary arithmetic, but well below the percentages secured by Tony Blair in 1997 and 2001 and Jeremy Corbyn in 2017.
And Sir Keir’s own personal ratings remain deep in negative territory, according to the latest YouGov survey, on all qualities except competence, where he rates a net zero.
The public decisively do not regard him as decisive, trustworthy, strong or likeable, albeit he scores well ahead of Mr Sunak on all counts.
Tightening the screws, the Lib Dems have embarked on a final tactical voting drive in Tory-held seats across southern England, targeting Theresa May’s former constituency of Maidenhead.
Some polls suggest Ed Davey’s inane stunt-heavy campaign could be rewarded by up to 70 Commons seats, possibly becoming the official opposition if the Tory/Reform split fatally divides the right.
But there are signs that Reform’s progress has been stalled, partly as a result of Mr Farage’s remarks on the Ukraine war and more by revelations of shocking racism on the part of some of the party’s candidates.
Reform, which has now belatedly suspended three exposed candidates, blames its troubles not on its fatal attraction for all manner of bigots but on the failures of a company hired to vet its standard-bearers.
