Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Oronovich. We're in an imaginary chamber strewn with charts and decorated with screens, into which the top experts on the big questions of the day arrive to tell us what we need to know in 28 minutes. That's the briefing room.

Today we're using a conceit that I'm in turn each of the main political party leaders seeking expert advice

on how to handle the general election that seems likely to take place before too long.

Who have I got to appeal to and how? Find out here. And if you enjoy this podcast, you might

enjoy some of our other episodes, including last week's hour-long special, The Perfect Storm,

the United Kingdom, Brexit and its history. You can find it on BBC Sounds.

What am I? Nobody really wants me, but everyone says they do, and the pundits say I'm inevitable

and possibly imminent. I am, of course, the next general election. But if there were such an

election any time soon, what should be the winning strategies of the main party leaders? Indeed,

what would winning even look like to some of them?

For this edition of the briefing room, I've decamped to a smoky backroom in Westminster to find out.

Let's start by having a fast drone ride over the electoral landscape to see where the political parties stand at the moment.

Earlier, I was joined in the briefing room by David Cowling, political analyst and expert in voting patterns.

David Cowling, let's start with the polling position of the parties. How are they doing?

Well, both Labour and the Conservatives

are down more than 10 points on where they were in 2017. The Conservatives in the low 30s,

labour in the mid-20s. The Lib Dems, on the other hand, have jumped about 10 points from 2017.

So it's been a very substantial change from two years ago.

Is this roughly what we might have anticipated would have happened after a change of

conservative leadership?

I don't believe so at all.

I mean, past historical record doesn't suggest that there would be this sudden explosion

...