Voters leaning towards Reform UK know it's easy to dream up plans you'll never deliver

IN SIX days it will all be over.

- Lord Ashcroft

The votes will be counted, the results will be in, and the new prime minister will be off to see the King. The preceding six weeks, with its succession of gaffes, mishaps and scarcely believable scandals, will seem like a slightly surreal dream - or, if you're Rishi Sunak, a nightmare. Most people think they know what will happen. Keír Starmer not becoming prime minister on Friday morning would make the shocks of 2016 (Brexit, Trump, Leicester City winning the Premier League) look tame.

Less clear is the scale of the likely Conservative defeat. More than half of voters now expect a large Labour majority, according to my latest polling - up from just over a third in the days after Rishi's surprise announcement in the Downing Street drizzle. Most of those who expect such a result say this is because of the polls and predictions they see in the news-and it is true that many studies point to varying degrees of Labour landslide.

But as a wise man once said, it's hard to make predictions, especially about the future. A huge Labour victory is certainly one scenario, but there are others.

My poll found that only half the country says they have definitely made up their mind how to vote.

And in my focus groups around the country, the lack of enthusiasm for Keir Starmer and Labour is unmistakable.

These two factors combined - the chance of a landslide for an unpopular party, and the number of voters apparently still in play gives some Conservatives hope of averting annihilation.

Perhaps, they say, fears of a Labour "supermajority" will persuade some former Tories who have drifted away from the party to return - especially those who have drifted in the direction of Nigel Farage and Reform UK. On the face of it, there are reasons to think this could work.

My research regularly finds that those leaning towards Reform thoroughly dislike the prospect of a Labour government.