With polls showing Labour enjoying a significant lead over the Conservatives for well over a year, a key question as the election campaign picks up pace is whether Rishi Sunak can do anything over the next few weeks to turn things around. With one of his own ministers reportedly having gone on holiday rather than participate in the opening days of the campaign on the ground, it seems some of his own team may have already given up.
In truth, when the first national surveys of voting behaviour in Britain were conducted in the 1960s, there was a good deal of scepticism among political scientists about whether British election campaigns, which are relatively short, actually had any effect on the results.
The argument was that by the time the official campaign started, it was too late to make any significant difference to the outcome. With just 25 working days to appeal to voters, it was largely felt that a party’s win or loss was already baked in by the time the campaigns started.
