Nightmare scenarios From big losses to almost total wipeout, what do the polls predict for Tories?

Polls which use largescale polling data to extrapolate individual seat tallies have become something of an obsession in UK politics. So popular are these MRPS-an acronym for multilevel regression and poststratification - that three were published on one day this week.

- Peter Walker

All gave pretty different results. What would the scenarios illustrated in these three MRP polls -carried out by More in Common, YouGov, and Savanta - mean for the Conservatives if they were replicated on polling day?

Solid Labour majority

More in Common poll: 155 Tory MPs

Amazing as it might sound were you to tell this to a Conservative MP in mid-2021, when the Tories were 15-plus points ahead of Labour in polls, quite a lot of party officials and candidates would probably accept this result if it was offered now: a Labour majority of 162.

Even with this scenario there would be some high-profile casualties; understandably, given it would be a cull of 210 Tories from the 2019 election. The MRP extrapolation predicts Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, would lose his seat to the Lib Dems, with his fellow cabinet ministers Grant Shapps and Mark Harper among those ousted by Labour.

What would the remaining parliamentary party look like? There are many imponderables, not least the influx of new MPs, with dozens of incumbent Tories having stepped down. It would, at least, be the opposition by some distance - under this model the Lib Dems would have 50 MPs - and there would be plenty of big beasts to fight to be leader were Rishi Sunak to step down or be challenged.

Jostling for this race has already begun, with Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel, Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick expected to try their luck from the right of the party.

For the centrists, while Shapps would be gone, the home secretary, James Cleverly, would still be around, as would Penny Mordaunt, whose Portsmouth seat is seen is very vulnerable to Labour. In brief: expect a big post-election fight.