CAN John Major do it again?

Certainly, to repeat the surprise that he pulled off in 1992 would, with only four days now left, be a staggering feat.

For look at the odds stacked against him.

The weekend's opinion polls - the largest single batch of the campaign - showed Labour's commanding lead holding up by up to and more than 20 points.

That is the stuff of a landslide for Tony Blair.

It is a prospect that even the Tory leadership now seems to accept.

For as we see former minister and loose-cannon Edwina Currie predicting a stunning win for Tony Blair, the jostling began behind the scenes for John Major's job as Tory leader with an eight-man field already emerging as contenders.

It is against this awesome background that the Prime Minister today set off on a whistle-stop tour of the country in a last-ditch bid to warn voters of the dangers of a change of government.

But one straw to which he must clutch is the fact that elections are never predictable, just as he proved last time.

For him, the ammunition for another Major surprise is the combination of complacency among Labour voters and the private Tory canvas returns showing that, as at the same stage of the 1992 campaign, 30 per cent of voters are still "don't knows".

It is to the crucial core of the undecided that Mr Major launches his last-ditch appeal.

And, at the wavering Tory voters he will be launching his party's final weapon - a dusted-off version of the Labour tax "bombshell" which ,in 1992, scared the election-swinging "don't knows" into the Conservative camp.

This time, it will be the threat of tax increases in a Labour government's July Budget that will be the focus of Mr Major's final salvo.

But will it work again - when this time the record shows that the Tories cannot be entirely trusted not to put up taxes?

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