General election – latest: Tories set for worse defeat than 1997 Labour landslide, new poll predicts

Another pollster has forecast the Tories’ worst ever loss in Thursday’s general election, with Labour set to outperform its 1997 landslide victory.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, defence secretary Grant Shapps and veterans minister Johnny Mercer are set to lose their seats, according to More In Common’s MRP poll of 13,556 adults across Britain, for The News Agents podcast.

Labour is set for an upset in Islington North, where the party’s former leader Jeremy Corbyn has a 91% chance of winning, but is on for around 430 seats in total, reducing the Conservatives Party’s House of Commons tally to 126.

More in Common has also forecasted Reform UK winning two seats, likely Ashfield in Nottinghamshire which the party’s Lee Anderson won in 2019 as a Conservative and Clacton in Essex, where Nigel Farage is standing.

The Green Party is tipped to win Brighton Pavilion where Caroline Lucas was the party’s only MP between 2010 and 2024, with its target constituency Bristol Central – where party co-leader Carla Denyer is a challenger to Labour shadow culture secretary Thangam Debbonaire – “too close to call”.

It comes after Survation quizzed 34,558 respondents and found it is “99% certain” Labour would win more than 418 seats – the number which Labour took under Tony Blair’s leadership 27 years ago.

The prime minister said: “I appreciate people have frustrations with our party, of course I do.

“We haven’t got everything perfectly right, haven’t made as much progress in every area as we would have liked, but tomorrow’s vote is not a by-election on the past, it is a vote about the future.”

Mr Sunak said criticism “comes with the territory” when asked about Tory recriminations over the party’s faltering election campaign.

On a campaign visit to Hampshire, he said: “No one gets into politics without being ready for criticism. That comes with the territory.

“But look, I am proud that this campaign has shone a spotlight on Labour’s plans to raise people’s taxes.”

Mr Sunak also dodged a question about his plans for Friday, instead saying: “I’m working very hard until the last minute of this campaign for every vote.”

He said he was not going to get drawn into “post-match analysis” before the election.

Asked whether he was concerned that the result could effectively spell the death of the Tory party, he said: “You guys are focused on all the kind of post-match analysis. No one’s voted. There have been postal votes but… lots of people haven’t made up their minds.”

The Sun has endorsed Labour just hours before polls open in a final devastating blow for Rishi Sunak.

With just hours to go, the staunchly Conservative newspaper published a front page and an op-ed throwing its weight behind the party.

It said it has “plenty of concerns” with the party still, and slated the Tories’ record in government.

Rishi Sunak has suffered a fresh blow as yet another poll put the Conservatives on course for a worse defeat than in 1997.

With just hours until polls open, a survey for More in Common predicted the party’s 126 seats would compare with Labour on 430.

That would be down from the 365 seats won by the Tories in 2019.

It would also be significantly lower than the 165 seats secured by John Major against Sir Tony Blair in 1997, the last time Labour swept to power.

The damning poll came a day after election experts at Survation suggested there was a 99 per cent chance Labour would take more than 418 seats, the number it achieved in 1997.

Among the Conservative Party upsets forecasted by More In Common are losses to Labour in Mr Shapps’s Welwyn Hatfield, Welsh secretary David TC Davies’s Monmouthshire, chief whip Simon Hart’s Caerfyrddin, attorney general Victoria Prentis’s Banbury and Mr Mercer’s Plymouth Moor View.

Voters are saying they are hopeful, bored, anxious or excited in anticipation of the general election results, in a poll by Savanta.

The larger the word, the more popular it was among people asked to say how they felt about the political situation:

A minister has rejected the suggestion that the election is “over” for the Conservatives after a Cabinet member all but conceded defeat on Wednesday.

However, Andrew Griffith echoed Mel Stride’s warning that if the polls are correct, Labour will win a majority “unprecedented in modern history”.

Asked whether he agreed with Suella Braverman that it was over for the Tories, the science minister told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: “No, not at all.”

He added: “Nobody should be taking the British people for granted.

“I think what Mel was talking about was the very real jeopardy of a Labour government.”

No criminal offences were committed by Reform UK activists campaigning for Nigel Farage who were filmed by an undercover journalist for Channel 4, Essex Police say.

The force said in a statement: “Having assessed the comments made during a Channel 4 news programme, and all other information available to us, we have concluded that no criminal offences have taken place.”

Another activist described the Pride flag as “degenerate” and suggested members of the LGBT community are paedophiles.

Mr Farage claimed he was the victim of a stitch-up because Mr Parker is an actor, although he insisted he was there as a Reform activist and Channel 4 said he was “not known” to the broadcaster before being “filmed covertly via the undercover operation”.

The Conservatives could only just scrape into second place ahead of the Lib Dems, with just 64 seats, a poll has predicted.

A Survation poll on Tuesday, based on MRP poll data, suggested the party would win between 34 and 99 seats – an average of 64 – while the Liberal Democrats are set to take between 49 and 73, with an average of 61.

“The Conservative Party is virtually certain to win a lower share of the vote than at any past general election,” Survation pollsters wrote.

Rishi Sunak met a woman described as the UK’s most tattooed mother, when he appeared on ITV this morning.

The prime minister first awaited his turn in the background while Becky Holt was interviewed on a sofa.

When it was his turn, he revealed his choice of tattoo would be the Southampton FC badge.

“My mind straightaway went to: well, I’d probably get the Saints crest,” he said, before adding that it’s “a great logo”.

Mr Sunak, who was born in Southampton, has long made his support for the club clear and previously described himself as a “massive Saints fan”.

Fears Labour will privatise the NHS are driving health workers away from the party, a new analysis suggests. Many are planning to vote Lib Dem or Green because of Wes Streeting’s proposals to use the private sector to bring down waiting lists.

He has defended his plans saying to fail to do so would result in a “betrayal” of working-class patients who cannot afford to pay for care.

The shadow health secretary has also said his approach is “pragmatic but principled one” and accused “middle-class lefties” of risking patient care for the sake of ideological purity.

An analysis of social media conversations of 5,000 healthcare professionals by the consultancy Creation Healthcare found largely negative responses towards the health policy proposals of both the Conservative and Labour parties.

More than 80 per cent of posts referencing the Conservatives were judged to be negative in sentiment, but the proportion was similar, just under 70 per cent, for those referencing Labour.

Of the top most-shared posts which mentioned the election, just six per cent were positive about the potential of a new government.

And while 76 percent of these posts were against voting for the Conservatives, 18 per cent were against voting Labour. One post read: “Wes [Streeting], we want better from you. Not more of the same please.”