THE dangerous last days. John Major makes his final desperate pitch, battling to be heard above the discordant strains of a party which looks as if it might implode at any moment. Like Mr Major, Paddy Ashdown puts his trust in the millions of voters apparently still undecided. Tony Blair warns his party against complacency and says he takes nothing for granted.
But according to the opinion polls, and most of the British press, it's already over. And even as Mr Blair issues his prudent public caution, the signs are that Labour, too, believes victory is in the bag.
The plans for a lavish election night party at the Royal Festival Hall are one sign of it. More revealing still, the activities of some of Mr Blair's ministers in waiting over the past weekend. For while they were bracing themselves for the final three days of the campaign, key members of the putative Blair cabinet were also laying detailed plans for next weekend, and their first few days in office.
They are right old course to do so. Mo Mowlam, Jack Straw and the like can hardly saunter into Blair's Downing Street on Friday afternoon, collect their red boxes, and only then set about discovering what should happen next. After 18 years in opposition, the imperative for a Blair cabinet would be to hit the ground running, to convey an image of competence from the outset.
But this is not just a case of sensible contingency planning for an event which may or may not happen. The early caution has gone.
Potential ministers, who steadfastly refused to believe until the result was declared, seem now convinced the country made up its mind a long time ago. Sure, they discourage talk of landslides. And more sober assessments still put Labour's likely overall majority at around 30 seats. But they no longer have any doubt that the prize will be theirs. Should the electorate prove them wrong, the effect on their collective and individual psyche is almost impossible to imagine.
These are dangerous and nerve racking times, too, for the opinion pollsters. With the exception of ICM, they are agreed on the result, with variations allowed only on the scale of the Tory disaster. But Mr Major clings to the stubborn belief that, wrong in 1992, they could be spectacularly wrong this time. Should he prove to be right, the pollsters might have thoughts of a collective suicide pact throwing themselves off the top of Labour's Millbank Towers HQ as they wave their apologies to Mr Blair.
Again the discrepancy between what the leaders say in public and the foot soldiers say in private. One minister rejects a landslide while conceding a probable Blair majority of 70. (One fancies that might feel like a landslide to Dr Mawhinney, come Friday.)
MPs contacted throughout the campaign have been consistent in their belief that their cause is lost. However, Mr Major can recall that most of his party felt the same way in 1992. And some insiders still maintain, against all the odds, that they can shade it - though with a hung parliament more likely than a Tory win.
Michael Portillo was at this yesterday, seeming to concede the possibility but only as a spur to Tory doubters. As a tactic it could badly backfire. For a hung parliament would bring with it the possibility (horror of horrors) of an early, second election. It would also increase the likelihood of two other developments from which floating voters would surely recoil.
Even if Mr Major was to win big on Thursday, a question mark remains over his capacity to lead his party. On the face of it, that could hardly be the case. A victory against these odds would be truly sensational. His authority should be enhanced. He could in normal circumstances savour the prospect then of surpassing Margaret Thatcher's record.
But the circumstances of the Tory party would be unaffected by reelection. Mr Major might embrace his resolutely Eurosceptical intake, abandon Chancellor Clarke and rule out the Single Currency in perpetuity. But his instinct would be the opposite. And the right retains its distrust of his instinct over Europe. Indeed it will be fed by the frenzied speculation about the positioning for a post defeat leadership contest.
Some accounts yesterday had Mr Major aligning with Kenneth Clarke in favour of Michael Heseltine as a stop gap leader, pending the return to the Commons of Chris Patten. Idle speculation, perhaps. But it has the ring of truth. And if the new intake prove as deeply hostile to Europe as their preelection declarations suggest, their disposition will be to have one of their own at the helm. For all his anti federal talk in this election, Mr Major ceased to be one of us" a long time ago.
So the floater might fear that a narrow win for Mr Major could provide the passport for one of his would be successors, after a renewal of the internal warfare that so debilitated the Major government in the last parliament.
More immediately still - if the Tories emerged with a single figure majority, or as the largest party but without an overall majority - who would be Mr Major's potential partners for the life of the next parliament? In the dying months of the last parliament, for all the denials, Mr Major relied on the insurance policy of Ulster Unionist support.
The distrust and discontent this caused was palpable, restrained only by the knowledge that the election could not be long delayed. But if Britons awoke on Friday to the prospect of the Conservatives governing more or less in coalition with the Ulster Unionists, many believe the reaction would be of outrage and deep hostility, and that it would extend far beyond these islands.
This, then, is the measure of the task confronting Mr Major. To have a chance of governing credibly in Northern Ireland and in Britain - he needs to do as well as last time and, arguably, better. And if you rate his chances of doing that, you'll find plenty of bookmakers willing to take your money.