Is it madness to call a general election when you’re 20 points behind in the polls? That depends on whether the pollsters and pundits are any more reliable now than when they promised us that Brexit would flop, that Hillary would win and that David Cameron had a 0.5 per cent chance of winning the general election. The last ten years have seen a stream of against-all-odds election victories — and Rishi Sunak’s only hope is that he can pull off one of these miracles. Here are four that he might have in mind…
1. David Cameron’s 2015 majority
Such is the hubris of the pollsters that in 2015 they started to produce percentage chances of possible election outcomes. Populus, run by Andrew ‘calamity’ Cooper, created his ‘predictor’ model for the Financial Times. It gave Cameron a 0.2 per cent chance of winning the national poll — a figure that was later updated to a 0.5 per cent chance. As it turned out, the Ukip vote folded into the Tory vote after Cameron promised a referendum on the European Union. Cooper ended up being given a consolation peerage from Cameron, his old chum. Like Nick Boles, another member of the Cameron chumocracy, Cooper is now advising the Labour party. Given his calamitous record, that’s good news for the Tories…
2. Donald Trump’s 2016 victory
Was there a more conceited moment than the election night where Newsweek magazine distributed a ‘Madam President’ cover — and Hillary Clinton signed it? At the time, psephologists at Princeton University — again, full of their own sophistication — gave Hillary a 99 per cent chance of victory. This was important, they said, as progressive campaigners should not waste time helping Hillary and instead help Democrats in other elections. Few electoral experts thought the political outsider would win over the American nation, and indeed exit polls suggested that Clinton was on course to secure the top job. But the bullish businessman easily swept the key battlegrounds of Florida, North Carolina and Ohio to become the US’s 45th president. And this year, Trump looks likely to see success once again…
3. Brexit in 2016
The landmark 2016 Brexit referendum saw Vote Leave prevail in a result that stunned the UK and shocked countries across the Continent. The narrow victory saw 52 per cent of people vote to remove Britain from the European Union, while 48 per cent opposed the move. But not everyone in Europe was disheartened by the result, with right-wing National Front leader Marine Le Pen quick to tweet ‘victory for freedom!’ and call for a similar referendum in France — while Dutch opposition politician Geert Wilders congratulated the UK on its very own ‘Independence Day’.
4. John Major’s 1992 win
It is almost exactly 32 years since the infamous Sheffield Rally where Neil Kinnock was riding so high in the poll that even he seemed to think the election was in the bag. ‘Well, awright! Awright! ’ Kinnock proclaimed to cheering fans — in what seemed to be a victory rally. In the end, Major won…
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