THERE is more chance of lightning striking the same place twice than of the Tories winning the general election, Britain’s top polling expert said today.

Sir John Curtice told the BBC there was “more chance of lightning striking twice, in the same place, and a bit more” than Rishi Sunak still being in Downing Street by the weekend.

And in a bizarre finale to a largely unhinged Tory campaign, the Prime Minister appeared to concede that the country was going downhill.

“We are on the downhill slope now,” he said, apparently meaning that the worst was behind the country but nevertheless capturing the general feeling of decline.

Despite insisting he was not giving up the polls are unambiguously awful for the Conservatives.

The latest suggested the party may be entirely wiped out in London in Thursday’s vote, with the Tories trailing Labour by 30 points in the capital.

Labour is on 49 per cent and the Tories on just 19 per cent, a margin which could leave the Conservatives all-but-seatless across London.

The government endeavoured to boost its situation by attacking Sir Keir Starmer over the Labour leader’s declared intention to carve out some family time for his two teenage children on Friday evenings.

Top Tories claimed that this might mean the country being left defenceless in the case of Friday evening Armageddon, claims Sir Keir described as “bordering on hysterical.”

Sir Keir’s spare-time habits were however in the spotlight when it was revealed that he had accepted more free gifts than almost any other MP in the last parliament — £76,000 worth, much of it in free clothing and tickets to watch Arsenal.

The Labour leader nevertheless claimed he would hit the ground running as Prime Minister — by building more prisons.

“There’s been a failure to build prisons. We can’t build a prison on Friday if we’re elected into government. That will take time. But we will make a start,” he pledged.

His predecessor Jeremy Corbyn warned that Sir Keir’s marginalisation of the left in his party would prove a weakness.

“I don’t see any appetite for political diversity by the Labour leadership at all. I just see a straitjacket of conformity,” he said.

“If they crush dissent in the Labour Party, which they’ve been very good at doing then they actually give themselves a fool’s paradise of agreement.”

Mr Corbyn added that “unless Labour start delivering on people’s worries and concerns” its majority would disappear pretty quickly.

Responding, Sir Keir unapologetically asserted he had changed Labour “with a steely determination, some say ruthlessness,” but still claimed there was “a diversity of views” in the party.

Candidates running to the left of Labour were making final pushes for votes today. 

Andrew Feinstein’s campaign against the Labour leader in Holborn and St Pancras was continuing to get a “fantastic reception” on the streets, with young people in particular delighted that they had a candidate they could support, activists said.

Workers Party sources believed that George Galloway was on course for re-election in Rochdale, where the Labour Party has all-but collapsed since February’s chaotic by-election.

In Birmingham, Labour has been pouring resources into the Ladywood constituency to save Shabana Mahmood from the consequences of her support for Israeli genocide and have been assisted by the revelation of misogynist remarks by independent challenger Akhmed Yakoob.

Polling today suggested that Green co-leader Carla Denyer is on course to win Bristol Central from Labour while Leicester East independent Claudia Webbe is winning broad support in an unpredictable contest embracing Labour, disgraced ex-MP Keith Vaz running again and attempts to stir up communal tensions.

One possible eminent scalp is former premier Liz Truss, who seems cordially disliked in her South-West Norfolk constituency and is losing votes heavily to independent candidate James Bagge among others.

Reform lost another candidate today, with Georgie David in West Ham becoming the latest to defect to supporting the Tories, citing the “racist, misogynist and bigoted” views of “the vast majority” of party candidates and a leadership which had failed to deal with the issue.