Rishi Sunak campaigns with Paul Holmes in Hampshire

For the past three weeks the Tories have been hammering home a single, highly unusual political message. With the polls pointing relentlessly in one direction, the Tories gave up on any illusion that they could win the election. They have instead attempted to lean in to the fact that they are teetering on the brink of apparent electoral oblivion, warning voters that backing Reform could hand Labour a landslide victory and a generation in power. If YouGov’s final “megapoll” of the election campaign is anything to go by, the strategy has failed. The Conservatives’ position appears to have worsened rather than improved as voters prepare to go to the polls on Thursday. It suggests that the Tories will be left with just 102 MPs after losing more than 70 per cent of the seats the party won five years ago. Labour is now expected to win 431 seats, giving Sir Keir Starmer a majority of 212. That would surpass Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide victory and represent the largest majority of any sing