When you are a beleaguered leader struggling through a long campaign, an unfortunate metaphor lurks around every corner. So it proved for Rishi Sunak on a recent visit to a farm near Barnstaple, a town in the constituency of North Devon. Mr Sunak gamely entered a sheep pen; the sheep all turned and fled. “Come on,” the prime minister pleaded, pointing to a bucket of feed. “They don’t want to play ball,” observed the farmer.

Mr Sunak’s presence in Barnstaple was telling. Selaine Saxby, the incumbent MP, is sitting on a majority of almost 15,000. What was once seen as a comfortable cushion is now cause for fretful visits from Conservative bigwigs. The story is similar in many seats across the south-west, a group of six largely rural counties stretching from Cornwall in the west to Wiltshire in the east. The Liberal Democrats and—less expectedly—Labour are shearing off disgruntled voters.