Chris Mason: We are on the threshold of a landmark election

Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour team are quietly preparing to form a government, but are plagued by a paranoia of complacency.

Nothing the Prime Minister has attempted during his conventional term in office and then during this election campaign appears to have had a significant impact on his political success.

The Conservative Party has a knack for reinventing itself like a chameleon – after all, we have seen a number of Tory prime ministers who have each modelled themselves on the record of their predecessor.

But this strategy increasingly came into conflict with its own contradictions.

Did Rishi Sunak want to take credit for the Conservatives’ long tenure in office or distance himself from it?

How many of the countless challenges facing Britain could one realistically blame another party for?

The last 14 years of the Conservative-led government have been marked by two referendums – Scottish independence and Brexit – as well as the international shocks of Covid and the war in Ukraine.

The referendums will result in a reshaping of our domestic policy and our relations with our closest neighbours.

One of these moves catapulted the Scottish National Party to unprecedented heights from which it is expected to crash again tomorrow.

The other option – leaving the European Union – shook the continent, the country and, in particular, the Conservative Party. It emboldened, unnerved and changed the Tories in ways that are still evident today.

Conservative MPs elected in 2019 formed an unlikely coalition, sent to Westminster by an electorate desperate to end the Brexit impasse and see Britain leave the EU.

But the Jenga-like combination of northern English Tories – many of whom wanted greater state involvement in the economy – and the traditional Tories living in the small states, often in the south, quickly proved extremely shaky under Boris Johnson’s chaotic leadership.

And while most people don’t care about politics most of the time, even the least interested – here and around the world – have noticed that Britain, that long-standing bastion of political predictability, has gone through three prime ministers in the space of a few weeks in the fall of 2022.

In this context, I suspect that the history books, stripped of the daily news noise, might be quite kind to Rishi Sunak: a man who brought an element of political and economic stability to Britain where neither had previously existed, and who had to face political headwinds that previous evidence suggested were almost impossible to withstand.

But stopping other countries from laughing at us and getting a grip on an economy that is sluggish at best – after nearly two decades of pathetically weak economic growth stemming from the economic crisis of 2007 and 2008 – has never been a recipe for success in parliamentary elections.

And there is something else: in modern times, no party has ever won five parliamentary elections in a row.

From Rishi Sunak’s perspective, this is the brutal truth of history: he is walking towards tomorrow.

But even from Keir Starmer’s perspective, there is another brutal truth: Labour loses far more elections than it wins, including those where people would expect it to win.

Labour has lost four general elections in a row.

Some might have expected Labour to stumble or panic at some point during the campaign, especially when the Tories appeared to be catching up. But Labour has been both disciplined and cautious, scrupulously defending its lead, which it hopes is consistent enough to deliver not just a victory, but a comfortable one.

They talk a lot about their planned “missions” in the government.

Her mission in opposition was to reassure the Conservatives and show her voters that they could be trusted, not least on economic and security issues.

They have tried to strike a balance between sounding like a government in waiting without sounding complacent, and setting out what they would like to do without suggesting that they are guaranteed to do it.

They also know that if they win the election they would inherit a dire state of public finances and a restless electorate – a wave of optimism and goodwill seems unlikely, no matter how large the majority.

And even a large majority does not make things any easier.

Apart from Labour’s stubborn lead in the opinion polls, the other big event in this long election campaign was the appearance – after the typical jibes – of Nigel Farage, both as a candidate and as the new leader of Reform UK.

The Conservative Party’s nightmare personified, his party’s upward trend in the opinion polls matches the rise in blood pressure of so many Tories.

And I notice a new name in politics that I think is worth keeping an eye on: Zia Yusuf.

Mr Yusuf is a highly successful technology entrepreneur in his thirties who has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to Reform UK.

This and the fact that he is a Muslim is interesting in itself, even if it may sound counterintuitive to some that he supports reform.

But listening to him at a mass rally in Birmingham at the weekend, Reform’s political arguments were delivered in a markedly different tone to those of Nigel Farage.

No less passionate and full of conviction (not least in his view that immigration is out of control), but a different tone.

I wondered whether a future political leader would retain his enthusiasm for politics.

Next up are the Liberal Democrats. If achievement in the absurd were the key to electoral success, they would be heading for a landslide victory.

Political leader Sir Ed Davey’s midlife crisis happened to coincide with an election campaign and countless crazy escapades followed.

In the battle for our attention, the Liberal Democrats have always struggled: they have been pushed out of the spotlight by Westminster giants the Conservatives and Labour, and over the last decade they have been pushed out of third place in the House of Commons by the Scottish National Party.

Sir Ed’s stunts are certainly eye-catching and he can point to his difficult life – he lost both parents to cancer as a child and is the father of a disabled son – so he can claim that fooling around is perfectly compatible with a serious attitude and an awareness of other people’s problems.

The Liberal Democrats are optimistic: they are confident that they can capitalise on the Conservatives’ contempt in parts of the country that are not particularly enthusiastic about Labour.

Given their unofficial assessments and the Scottish National Party’s unofficial fears about their potential performance, it is likely that the Liberal Democrats can overtake the SNP and become the third largest party in Westminster.

If this were to happen, it would set back the political case for another referendum on Scottish independence and give the Liberal Democrats a stronger platform for their speeches – for example, they would be guaranteed a weekly contribution to Prime Minister’s Questions Time.

And then there is the Green Party of England and Wales.

For example, how might they fare in parts of Brighton, Bristol and Suffolk, where they are making significant efforts?

In other words, there could be a reshaping of politics not only across the major parties, but also between them.

We are on the threshold of a parliamentary election that could mark a historic turning point.

But people like me who talk about all these things are running out of time.

Soon it will be up to you to decide what things look like on Friday morning.