Tory politicians who cut their teeth on the 1997 general election campaign have a story they like to tell. They watched John Major get up every day and suggest to his team that the Tories could win, and then fight – despite all the polls suggesting otherwise. It convinced the then young aides that Major might know something no one else did – that there was hope. Then, on polling day, they went up to the Downing Street flat to find everything packed to move out. It turned out that in the weeks before, Major’s wife, Norma, had been quietly moving out most of her clothes so there was less to do after the result.
The point is that even a prime minister aware it would take a miracle to stop a landslide defeat could not say so out loud. While there have been plenty – perhaps too many – Major-Sunak comparisons over the past two years, this is something both politicians will now understand. No leader has called an election from 20 points behind and won, and the polls so far suggest Sunak has made little visible progress. An Observer poll suggests that rather than close the gap, Labour has opened its biggest lead since Liz Truss was prime minister.
