It's reset day for Rishi, but his manifesto launch hides a deeper strategic shift

THE Conservative campaign, as Rishi Sunak said several times in his BBC interview last night, "is about the future".

- Anne McElvoy

Spoiler alert: no one needs a soothsayer to predict that. The only question is the size of Labour's majority and scale of the Tory wipe-out. So the Conservative campaign is switching rapidly into defensive mode, reinforcing formerly safe seats with visits from senior ministers, as the prospect of falling below 200 seats in Parliament haunts despairing tacticians.

Both Sunak, right, and a Conservative social media onslaught this week are tacitly acknowledging the wooden spoon prize on July 4 is to limit the size of the Starmer majority and the impact of Nigel Farage's Reform. A vote for anyone who's not a Conservative candidate is just making it more likely that Keir Starmer will become prime minister, was Sunak's thrust last night - a "poison pill" argument.

That assumes that Reform-inclined folk dislike Starmer more than they hold the present government in contempt. But, like many of the "ultra" supporters voting for Right-wing parties with gusto across Europe in EU parliamentary elections, they are often as driven by punishing the Tory government they feel has failed to be hardline enough on immigration, crime, "wokery" and quitting the ECHR, as they are by keeping Labour out.