Things go from bad to worse for Sunak

With less than 2 weeks to go until the election, the key moment of the campaign this week has been the second set of ‘MRP’ polls, which predicted that the Conservatives could win the lowest ever number of seats in the Party’s 200-year history. Labour’s predicted majority ranges from 162 to 382 depending on which polling company you look at.

At the start of the campaign the received wisdom was that Sunak called the election on the basis that it would be the best way to get the public’s attention about the Party’s plans for the future and, with a newly engaged electorate and increased scrutiny of Labour, the polls would inevitability narrow.

Instead, 4 weeks on from a bad first set of predictions, the latest YouGov poll projects the Conservatives losing 32 more seats. Only half of the current Cabinet are expected to survive. In evidence of just how worried the Party is, the Prime Minister has been out and about campaigning in areas that until now had been deemed ‘true blue’ safe seats.

The extra seat losses are largely not going to Labour but to the smaller parties. On the YouGov projections, whilst Reform is predicted to gain 5 (up from 0 at the start of the campaign), the big winners are the Lib Dems, at an estimated 19 extra seats. This would bring their total to 67, which would be a truly remarkable turnaround for the party. As ever with polls, they may turn out to be wrong, and a number of candidates have said that they don’t tally with their experience on the ground, however the overall picture is certainly not great for the Conservatives.

In that vein, it feels like this week’s campaign has been dominated by discussion of the future of the Party, with leadership jostling very much underway behind the scenes. Based on the predictions, Politico analysis suggests that those Tory MPs who retain their seats would be split fairly evenly between the harder right and the moderate ‘one nationers’, guaranteeing that we are in for a fractious campaign for the Party’s future.

The policy messages that both of the main parties are trying to land are not cutting through at all. Did any of the general public notice that this week was ‘economy week’ for Labour, with pledges to create extra jobs and revitalise British high street? I suspect not.

Instead, questions on tax continue to follow Starmer, with this week’s focus on his definition of ‘working people’, who he claims will not be taxed. After his clarification that ‘working people’ were those who could not write a cheque when they get into trouble, this led to much speculation about whether or not savers would be penalised under a potential Labour government (he says they won’t).

As mentioned last week, the real story that is cutting through is the election betting scandal, which is growing. It’s emerged that the wife of the Conservatives’ election campaign director also placed a bet on when the election would be held, and rumours are swirling of further names to come over the weekend.

Off the back of party-gate, this type of scandal builds on everyone’s worst opinions of the Conservative Party and is precisely the last thing that Sunak needs as he tries to justify their record in power.

More widely, it confirms the public’s widespread disenchantment with politicians, which is a serious problem for any future government to grapple with and which came across clearly in this week’s Question Time ‘leaders special’.