The Conservative Party has nearly all the advantages. It has the money, and the majority of the press to back it up, not to mention a broadcast media that barely challenges its propaganda. It has business on its side, and, following the capitulation of the Brexit Party, the Tories now have clear title to the issue of leaving the EU. And yet the outcome of the election is still in doubt. With less than a week to go, the polls are narrowing. Having already feasted on the cadaverous tissue of Nigel Farage’s support, there’s nowhere and no one else for the Tories to reach out to. In fact, we might even say there’s a touch of the last gasp about the Conservative election campaign.

Running on Empty Reading their manifesto, along with the sinister-sound page 48 — which commits a Tory government to a fresh look at the constitutional settlement, curbing the ability of the courts to scrutinise and stymie government decisions — we can find pledges to extend voting rights for “ex-pats”, from the current 15 years after leaving the UK to perpetuity. The Tories also want to revive the constituency boundary review in order to reduce the number of opposition MPs and maximise their own seat share. They’re committed to introducing photo ID for elections as well. These are quick fixes, primarily designed to suppress Labour votes, making it more difficult to remove the Conservatives from office. And there’s one key reason for that: in the medium to long-term, the Conservative Party is in massive trouble. Boris Johnson’s strategy is the same as Theresa May’s in 2017: talk a lot about Brexit, say the Tories are the only ones capable of delivering it, and wait for the votes to roll in. The only substantive difference between now and then is that Johnson is promising very little else. The 20,000 police officers won’t make up for the 21,000 already cut over the last decade, nor for the rest of the damage their cuts have done to the criminal justice system. And the statistical trick of counting 19,000 current nurses towards the 50,000 extra ones Johnson has pledged is easy to mock. But as the campaign has trundled on, with Johnson resorting to outright lies about his government’s record on counter-terrorism and what Labour plans to do, these missteps slide down the memory hole. None are the sort of “gotcha” moments that derailed May’s campaign. And this is entirely deliberate. Brexit is potentially a huge wedge issue that can be driven between Labour and the third of its 2017 electorate who voted Leave in 2016. By pretending Brexit is ready to go, Johnson hopes to win these people over on a thin prospectus. He doesn’t want anything in his manifesto that could scare off those preparing to vote Tory for the first time. By the same token, however, the other concerns these voters have — particularly when it comes to public services, the NHS above all — mean that Labour’s strong policy offering might lure them back.