Rishi Sunak is running the wrong campaign as he pins his hopes on Boris Johnson

Rishi Sunak has been warned he is running the wrong campaign as he pinned his hopes on an intervention by Boris Johnson to try to avoid an electoral collapse.

The Prime Minister today traveled to the southwest of England to try to save seats from Nigel Farages's pincer movement Reform UK on the right and Labor and the Liberal Democrats on the left.

But while Mr Sunak was openly mocked by his rivals amid footage showing him speaking over bales of hay and sheep running away as he tried to feed them, former chancellor George Osborne, who led winning election campaigns in 2010 and 2015, launched widespread criticism of the besieged country. Prime Minister.

As the sheep fled in front of him, Mr Sunak tried to joke: I think they thought we were shearers.

But Mr Osborne warned Mr Sunak would have to spend more time defending Blue Wall Tory seats in the south of England, where Labor is allowed to run wild.

Sunak is being dragged, in my view, into a bad campaign trying to stop Reform coming second when he should always be trying to focus on limiting the damage caused by Labor first or limiting the losses for the Conservatives, Mr Osborne said. her Political currency podcast.

This means he should try to defend his blue wall seats, where Labor is currently running amok, rather than focusing on the red wall seats that Boris Johnson won five years ago when, by the way , the Labor candidate was Jeremy Corbyn. a completely different election to that of Sir Keir Starmer.

In a bad day for Mr Sunak, two further polls delivered bad news, with Savanta revealing that just one in five voters (21 per cent) believe his promises to cut immigration, and 27 per cent think Labor would be more likely to stop boats.

Claims that the Tories are lying about immigration have been a key line of attack from Nigel Farage, who pointed out that this would be the fifth program in a row in which the Tories have promised to reduce net migration, after failing to do so the previous four times. .

Meanwhile, an Ipsos Moris poll suggests Mr Farage will be elected MP for Clacton, in further bad news for the Conservatives.

Mr Johnson released a series of video clips in support of Conservative candidates who were loyal to him as MPs before his impeachment.

The former prime minister, who was disgraced for breaking lockdown rules and misleading Parliament, has so far refused to directly support Mr Sunak or personally appear during the election campaign to help the man who many saw as a leader in the plot to depose him. from n°10.

A letter from Mr Johnson to voters is set to be published, but sources close to the former prime minister refused to say whether it mentioned Mr Sunak by name.

Daisy Cooper, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: “Rishi Sunak being excluded from his own campaign by Boris Johnson is a new low.

“It’s not like Johnson didn’t know who the prime minister was: he promoted him, was fined for partying with him and was eventually replaced by him.

“Frankly, most people are tired of this endless conservative psychodrama. In many parts of the country, the best way to end this conservative chaos is to vote Liberal Democrats on July 4.”

But Mr Sunak told reporters he believed the interventions would help.

He said it was great that Mr Johnson, who is on holiday in Italy, was backing Conservative candidates in a series of videos and letters to voters in the coming days, in an intervention Mr Sunak said it was coordinated by the campaign.

The prime minister denied giving up on winning the election as he continued the Conservative campaign with large Tory majorities on Tuesday.

Asked during a visit to a North Devon farm, where Selaine Saxby is defending a majority of almost 15,000 votes, if he had given up on victory, the Prime Minister replied: Every time someone asks me a question question like that, I'm saying the same thing, which is: I'm not taking a single vote for granted and I'm going to be in every part of our country talking to people about choice in this election.