The results of this poll are stunningly awful. Whatever the strategy is – and it is often hard to discern – it isn’t working.

You may find it hard to believe, but complacency is one of the Conservative Party’s most significant problems. 

We’ve heard a lot of it this week – that the British people will never vote for Sir Keir Starmer, that no party has ever lost a significant majority in one go, that we are in a 1992 scenario where we Tories can still grind out a tight victory if we all stick to the plan.

That has always involved not just an implausible leap of faith but a deaf ear to the disdain with which many British voters now view the Tory party – the “scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt, and anything that may not misbecome the mighty sender”, to borrow Exeter’s words to the Dauphin in Henry V.

Yes, it’s obviously true that Sir Keir isn’t particularly popular. He doesn’t need to be.

The YouGov poll The Telegraph published on Sunday, which I have been involved in shaping and analysing, should put this complacency to bed. 

Its results are stunning – stunningly awful. If we are lucky, it makes clear that the Tory party faces a 1997-style wipeout. The party will lose nearly 200 seats, the worst loss of seats since Arthur Balfour in 1906, and Labour will get a majority of 120.

Conservatives could see the most significant drop in MPs in over a hundred years.

That majority is slightly smaller than Tony Blair’s only because the SNP will still hold 20-odd Labour seats in 1997 – hardly a reason for joy.

I’ve been warning about this for months. In truth, existing polls already show it. But it is too easy for complacent Tory MPs to dismiss them as misleading. That’s not possible with this poll. 

These MRP polls have huge samples and give us detailed constituency-level data. They don’t rely on the same back-of-an-envelope extrapolations to get seat results from the headline number. They have a track record of accuracy. 

This poll shows we will lose and lose badly unless we do something about it.

Nor can MPs say, “Well, the polls will tighten when the election is on us”. This YouGov MRP is robust to much of this, taking into account ex-Tory “don’t know” and assuming some will, in the end, vote in the same way as those demographically and politically like them. 

Tightening is therefore factored in. Without this, the Tory party wouldn’t get more than 100 seats.

Nor does it factor in any further boost for Reform UK. Just imagine if Nigel Farage delivered on his hints and came back to politics. Two or three extra points for Reform and more tactical voting, which might look like an extinction event.