Is the Tories' number up? Weakness aplenty - and a year ending in a four

Labour governments have come to power five times in the past century and three of those occasions have come in years that end in a four: 1924, 1964 and 1974. If Rishi Sunak does call an election in 2024, history suggests he will lose.

But not by all that much. In 1924, Ramsay MacDonald formed a minority government after the December 1923 election. Harold Wilson scraped home with a slender overall majority in October 1964 and returned to Downing Street after the inconclusive result in February 1974.

Looking at the state of opinion polls, a similar outcome in 2024 would be considered a good result for Sunak. Polls suggest the Conservative party is facing a defeat to match that suffered by John Major in 1997.

Sunak remains hopeful that an improving economy will boost the Conservatives' fortunes, as it nearly did in the 1964 election. That contest turned out to be a lot closer than the polls had been suggesting a year previously when, in the aftermath of the scandal involving John Profumo and Christine Keeler, Harold Macmillan was replaced as prime minister by Alec Douglas-Home.