Delaying the election will only mean one thing for the Tories

As a new poll predicts the Conservative Party will suffer its biggest defeat since the dawn of modern democracy, Sean O’Grady explains how Rishi Sunak could stem the bleeding – or create an even bigger disaster

The voters have made their minds up and stopped listening to Sunak and his gaffe-prone colleagues (AFP via Getty)

What are we to make of the latest “megapoll” conducted by Survation – one that presents us with the prospect of a Tory disaster greater than anything since the dawn of modern democracy in 1832? That’s right. Eighteen hundred and thirty-two, the first general election to be held after the passage of the Great Reform Act.

In some ways, it tells us nothing new, except perhaps suggesting that, even now, the Tories don’t realise what is about to hit them. The British general election of 2024 will be a record-breaking affair. If an election were held now, the Conservatives, who’ve ruled the country for the majority of the past century, would win just over a quarter of the vote (26 per cent), the lowest of any major party in any general election, surpassing Labour under Michael Foot in 1983 (who came in at 27.6 per cent).

However, unlike Labour in that heat, the Tories would be down to a rump of 98 seats. Half of the cabinet would be gone. Rishi Sunak is in real danger of being the first sitting prime minister to be turfed out since Arthur Balfour in 1906. Sir Keir Starmer’s prospective 45 per cent vote share and vertiginous 286-seat Commons majority would exceed anything that Tony Blair and New Labour dreamed of.