Of my 11 general elections, this has been the strangest

In 1983, I was sitting in the front row when Labour bizarrely confirmed at a press conference during the general election that Michael Foot was still the leader of the party, and would lead it into the contest.

- ANDREW GRICE

That was my first election after moving to the Westminster village. I never dreamt I would see a repeat of Foot's humiliating moment. Yet it happened again this week, in what is the most bizarre campaign I have witnessed in the 11 general elections I have covered.

The Conservatives have been so disaster-prone that, like several cabinet ministers before him, Rishi Sunak himself had to confirm he would not be replaced before next month’s election after his catastrophic decision to miss part of the D-Day commemorations in Normandy. Sunak prolonged his agony: the ITV interview for which he returned early wasn’t screened for six days. There was another burst of damaging coverage when it did.

The Tory campaign got even stranger when Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, appealed to voters not to give Labour a "supermajority” and “unchecked power, able to do anything”. Remarkably, this came only a day after Sunak launched the Tory manifesto – so it was hardly a sign of confidence in the party’s prospects. The beleaguered Sunak insisted he was still fighting to win, but Shapps wasn’t off message and Jeremy Hunt echoed his warning.