Final pitches to voters as the Tories (almost) admit defeat

PARTY leaders made their final appeals to Londoners today on why they should back their party as a Cabinet minister said Labour was heading for an “extraordinary landside” victory on a scale probably never seen before in Britain.

- Nicholas Cecil

The Tories all but conceded defeat some 24 hours before the polls opened from 7am to 10pm tomorrow. For the first time at a general election voters in Britain will need to show photographic ID before receiving a ballot paper at polling stations.

Many of the traditional polls were still pointing towards a Labour lead of 15 to 20 points, but there were some signs that they may be closing slightly ahead of polling day.

MRP surveys, which involve interviewing thousands of voters from different social groups and then matching them with constituencies’ profiles, showed Labour winning a historic majority, with the latest one from Survation concluding that Sir Keir Starmer’s party getting more than 418 seats, the number which the party took under Sir Tony Blair 27 years ago, is “99 per cent certain”.

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride told GB News: “If you look at the polls it’s pretty clear that Labour at this stage are heading for an extraordinary landside on a scale that has probably, never been seen in this country before.”

But he said that if about 130,000 people in around 100 marginal seats who might be considering voting Reform or Liberal Democrat instead gave their vote to the Tories, it would help to give Parliament a more robust opposition.