In politics, metaphors are very dangerous. At 5.13pm on Wednesday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stood in Downing Street, intending to deliver eight minutes of optimistic, upbeat rhetoric to convince voters that, in six weeks, they should reject change in favour of continuity.

The intention differed from the execution. Inexplicably, Mr Sunak chose to launch his sunny case in the pouring rain. With all the rhetorical flourish of a final statement before the lethal injection, it was perhaps not such a bad thing that his words were drowned out by the protestor’s loudspeaker playing the New Labour anthem Things Can Only Get Better.

The rain was biblical, but there will be no miracles here. It will not get better for Mr Sunak. In all likelihood, he already knows this. Entering the job 18 months ago, this highly intelligent man will have been aware that he was almost certainly destined to lose on account of the performance of his predecessors.

There was no electoral or strategic reason to call a summer election; indeed, by waiting until Autumn as most of his wisest aides had advised, he would have interest rate cuts, tax cuts and probably a flight or two to Rwanda to campaign on. Nonetheless, none of those would have been enough to make him win, and he knows that. The only logical conclusion about what happened on Wednesday is that Mr Sunak has had enough, and sees no reason to prolong the matter.

I wonder if, strangely, what happens in the six weeks after the July 4th election may be more interesting that what happens in the six weeks leading up to it. Westminster politics has been predictably cyclical for my entire lifetime. After a long period in office for one of the two main parties,........

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