RISHI Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer criss-crossed Britain in their battle buses yesterday as the election reached its closing 48 hours.
The Prime Minister and the man who wants his job both warned voters the race is closer than the polls say – during whistlestop tours of factories, farms and shops.
Today they set out their last-ditch stalls to Sun readers – alongside Reform’s Nigel Farage who wants to give them both a bloody nose on Thursday.
Last night the PM arrived back in the capital for a late-night rally where he repeated his claim that just 130,000 people changing their mind could swing the result.
He said: “If you are one of those 130,000 voters who could stop a Labour supermajority, lend us your support.”
Meanwhile, Sir Keir urged activists in Staffordshire: “Don’t believe the polls” — as he warned many are undecided.
Multiple polls last night were showing Labour dipping below the 40 per cent share won by ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2017.
There was a slight uptick in Tory fortunes but nowhere near enough to keep them in power.
Reform also appeared to have peaked with a number of surveys showing their support dipping back to the mid-teens.
Yesterday Mr Sunak and Sir Keir traded barbs about who works hardest after the Labour leader said he would clock off at 6pm on Fridays even in No10.
Mr Sunak hit back: “I work night and day as PM”, stressing “there is always work you can do”.
He told The Sun: “Everyone is going to do this job differently – that is just the way it is.
“But I can tell you from my experience that it is demanding and rightly so because there is great responsibility that rests on your shoulders.
“There are always decisions that need to be made and that is what comes with the privilege of doing this job.”
He added: “I work day and night to do the best job I can.
“I will do everything I can.
“I work day and night to try to make people’s lives better.”
Dad-of-two Sir Keir sparked Tory criticism after admitting he will continue to have “protected time for the kids” at the end of the working week.
He will “not do a work-related thing after 6pm pretty well come what may”.
But after he was dubbed Sir Sleepy, he said it was obvious why he wants to be with his Jewish wife on a Friday evening.
Speaking at a drinks distribution factory near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, he said: “I would have thought to anybody it’s blindingly obvious that a Friday night is quite important in some religions and faiths.
“To be perfectly honest, it’s also time that we want to spend as a family, when it’s laughably pathetic that anybody is making an issue of me saying I’m going to try and continue to make time for my wife and kids. Of course I am.”
He visited three target seats yesterday as he attempts to maximise his party’s vote.
He told factory workers: “People are saying the polls predict the future – they don’t predict the future, every single vote counts, every single vote has to be earned.
“And in places like this it’ll probably go down to a few hundred either way and therefore the worst thing for people who want change is to think ‘job done’ and ‘we don’t need to vote because there’s going to be a majority in any event’.
“It isn’t job done.”
His rival, meanwhile, warned voters not to “sleepwalk” into a Labour administration.
In a candid moment at a Cotswolds warehouse, the PM conceded he had been given a poisoned chalice entering No10 after Liz Truss.
But he said: “There’s no point sitting there wishing on someone to give me four aces or whatever it is.
“You have got to play the cards you are dealt.”
His day started at 3am when the Tory battle bus departed from Leicestershire for an Ocado warehouse in Luton.
In the dead of night, the PM spent 20 minutes in a gigantic fridge watching robots whizz around packing goods.
The few humans working there at 4.30am were treated to the sight of the PM checking if smoked salmon and avocado had been placed in the correct bag.
Back on the road at 5am, Mr Sunak picked up McDonald’s breakfast takeaways for his aides — and revealed he has given up fasting for the campaign.
He smiled: “I can’t manage it during an election, I just can’t manage it with these hours.”
By 8am he was in a Cotswolds Morrisons.
However, a few aisles away a shopper said: “I’ve voted Conservative all my life but not anymore.
“I’m voting Reform.”
POLLING Day is almost upon us - and The Sun has got you covered with TWO live election night episodes of Never Mind The Ballots.
Our Political Editor Harry Cole will host a star-studded panel of experts live from Sun HQ at 10.15pm on Thursday for a snap reaction to the all-important exit poll.
And then we’ll be back at 8am on Friday to chew over the full results and fallout from the race for No10.
Britain could wake up to a new Prime Minister on July 5 if Sir Keir Starmer proves the polls right and cruises into Downing Street.
But might Rishi Sunak do enough to deny the Labour leader a dreaded supermajority and prevent a full-scale Tory wipeout?
For the very best analysis tune in on The Sun’s YouTube page or thesun.co.uk. You won’t want to miss it.
Late morning at a distribution warehouse in Oxfordshire, Mr Sunak packed Nivea Christmas gift boxes before meeting staff for a Q&A.
He was pressed on the soaring cost of childcare and crippling NHS waiting times.
The PM hammered home the message that being a father of two makes him all too aware of the hardships parents are facing.
He met one mother who turned to private healthcare after waiting three years for her son to secure an NHS appointment.
Mr Sunak admitted: “We haven’t made as much progress on the health service as I would’ve liked.
“Children need to get the support they need – it’s vital.
“We’re going to make private care available on the NHS in more and more areas.”
Sir Keir refused to name his cabinet if he wins on Thursday, suggesting that would be “complacent”.
But he added: “There are some first steps that we need to get on with straight away – the 40,000 extra appointments in our hospitals to bring the waiting lists down, the teachers we desperately need in our secondary schools.
“These are the sorts of things that we can do on day one.”
