How The Tory Election Campaign Has Become More Desperate As Wipeout Looms

Political betting has become rather frowned upon in recent weeks, but if you do fancy a flutter on the election, the odds on Labour winning the most seats on Thursday are currently 1/100.

For the uninitiated, this means you need to wager £100 to win a quid. In other words, the bookies see it as virtually certain that Keir Starmer’s party will come out on top.

The Conservatives think this too, which is why the party’s campaign has become ever more negative the closer we get to July 4.

Rishi Sunak has decided that the only hope he has of remaining prime minister is to scare the country into not voting Labour.

Here, HuffPost UK looks at how the PM has embraced Project Fear as he tries to hold onto the keys to No.10.

Supermajority Warning

Grant Shapps was the first senior Tory to say the quiet part out loud midway through the election campaign when he admitted that Labour were on course to win, and win big.

However, he warned that a “supermajority” for the party would be bad for democracy, and therefore should be avoided at all costs.

“The concern would be that if Keir Starmer were to go into No.10 and that power was in some way unchecked, it would be very bad news for people in this country, a blank cheque approach, allowing to do anything they wanted,” he said.

Unfortunately for the defence secretary and his colleagues, polling at the weekend revealed that the prospect of a supermajority (whatever that is) is actually making people more likely to vote Labour.

Tax Bombshell Blows Up In Sunak’s Face

Despite increasing the tax burden to a post-war high, the Tories have tried to use the issue to attack Labour throughout the campaign.

Rishi Sunak thought he had hit upon a winning strategy when he claimed during his first head-to-head debate with Keir Starmer that there was a £38 billion black hole in the opposition’s spending plans which could only be filled by increasing taxes by £2,000 per household.

What’s more, the PM claimed his figures had come from “independent Treasury analysis”.

However, within 24 hours it became clear that Tory officials were really behind the sums, and that the Treasury’s top civil servant had warned ministers not to claim otherwise.

Labour, meanwhile, insist they will not need to put up taxes to meet their manifesto commitments.

Labour ‘Will Rig The System To Stay In Power Forever’

With the prospect of a historic defeat becoming ever clearer, the Conservatives really pushed the panic button.

A Labour government, they said, would rig the system so they could never be removed from office.

Keir Starmer has admitted he will reduce the voting age to 16, while he is also expected to create dozens of new peers to help push his legislation through the House of Lords.

But the Tories have gone even further by claiming Labour would give the vote to EU nationals and even prisoners in a desperate bid to cling to power.

Home secretary James Cleverly repeatedly said this on the broadcast round this morning, prompting shadow health secretary Wes Streeting to respond: “The Conservatives can’t admit the truth about their record so they lie about Labour’s plans. Don’t let them get away with it.”

Putin The Boot In

The Tories’ negative campaign strategy finally reached its nadir in the pages of the Daily Telegraph this morning when Sunak claimed Vladimir Putin is rooting for Labour on Thursday.

Only the Conservatives, the PM, said could be trusted to stand with Ukraine in their war with Russia.

He said: “Putin would like nothing more than for Britain to step back, to appease his aggression rather than face it down, and that is what will happen with another party in power.”

On Times Radio, Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth said: “It’s pretty desperate stuff now from the Tory party, isn’t it? Really desperate stuff.

“I’ve got no idea what Putin would think, but I know this – the Labour Party and a Labour government would always put the defence of our people absolutely first.”

With 72 hours until polling day, the question now is: How low can the Tories go?