SO IT came to pass that the predictable and mundane was what Mr Major intended all along. There were no surprises, save that the announcement was made yesterday rather than today or on Thursday.

The British electorate will adjudicate on the Tory Party's claim to a fifth term on May 1st. After months of dither and delay, the Prime Minister finally put us out of our misery.

To be more precise, he gave us sight of the end. For, still playing for time, he has reposed his remaining hopes in a full six week campaign.

Has he chosen wisely and well? Can this, or anything now for that matter, make any difference to the final result?

A great deal of mythology attaches to prime ministers and their choice of the election date. Those who get it right (presumably by winning) secure their reputation as great practitioners of the black art. And even before yesterday's brief visit to Buckingham Palace, commentators were wondering if Mr Major's magic touch had not already deserted him.

Should he not have taken the plunge last autumn, with the backdrop of party unity (lent briefly by the annual conference), the backdrop to a self confident pitch to the electorate? Academic, perhaps.

But while comparisons with Jim Callaghan's final "winter of discontent" may seem exaggerated, it is generally accepted that the Conservative Party's position is now even worse than it then appeared.

While awaiting the return of the "feel good factor" the punters have been treated to sporadic outbreaks of cabinet warfare over Europe; the appearance of ministers positioning themselves for the succession battle which would follow defeat; the awful spectacle of Douglas Hogg in a perpetual stew over beef, food safety and abattoir hygiene; the staggering defeat in Wirral South; the final loss of a Commons majority and the endless scraping together of deals with the Ulster Unionists in near ritual attempts to postpone the evil day.

The latest opinion poll gives Labour a seemingly unassailable 25 point lead.

Mr Major could be forgiven for refusing to believe the laws of electoral gravity would be defied. The economy is in robust good health. After the pain of recession and the agonies of repossession, there is the beginning of revival in the property market. Inflation remains under control, unemployment continues to fall.

He is opposed by a Labour Party which has remorselessly (some would say shamelessly) junked its baggage and beliefs - whose claim to newness is embodied in Mr Gordon Brown's breathtaking (and, many think, scarcely believable) claim that he won't change the tax rates and, for two years at least, will live within Chancellor Clarke's preset spending limits.

AS MR Blair continued his steady march onto Tory territory it has always seemed possible the electorate would ultimately reject `the pale shadow' in favour of the real thing.

But many despairing Tories (and, in private at least, they are the majority) think the die was cast in the autumn of 1992 - when the central plank of Mr Major's economic policy collapsed and when Britain was forced out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, taking the Conservative government's reputation for competence and authority with it.

The events of Black Wednesday fuelled the crisis of confidence and seething discontent which eventually led Mr Major to put his leadership on the line in June 1995. "Back me or sack me," Mr Major told his mutinous troops.

After a customary dither - and for want of a contest involving the real challengers they did, but in a manner which failed to convincingly restore their leader's authority. More than 100 Tory MPs declined to back Mr Major, after challenger John Redwood told them "no change" meant "no chance".

As he rubs his `lucky' soap box, faithfully preserved from the 92 campaign, Mr Major may comfort himself that the not so loyal colleagues, fearful for their majorities, now subscribe to the view that he is the Tory Party's greatest single asset.

But that will be little consolation as he considers the electoral earthquake now necessary if he is to avoid defeat. And there will be none whatsoever in thoughts of what might have been if only Mr John Smith had survived as Labour leader.

Many great, and entirely deserved, tributes were paid to Mr Smith after his untimely death. But his election to succeed Neil Kinnock in 92 did not betoken convincing evidence that Labour had absorbed the reasons for four consecutive election defeats.

Mr Blair needed no instruction in any of that. His assault on the left, on the unions and on the ancient gods of `Clause 4' socialism has been brutal and impressive.

His aides, without embarrassment, identify the Daily Mail and the Sun as the most influential newspapers in Britain. He, without embarrassment, claims the `One Nation' ground of old Toryism as his own, and accepts direct and favourable comparison with Margaret Thatcher's leadership style.

The old left may be gagging in the corner but they remain silent. Determined on fiscal prudence, Mr Blair warns public sector workers to expect no favours, and is even rumoured to have some `privatisation' schemes of his own in mind.

On education, as on crime and its causes, he has consigned old Labour dogma to the history books. With a perfect sense of timing, he even managed to upstage Mr Major's election announcement on the front page of yesterday's Sun with his most Euro sceptical pronouncement to date: "New Labour will have no truck with a European superstate. We will fight for Britain's interests and to keep our independence every inch of the way.

IF - and Mr Blair emphasises the `IF' - the issue of a single currency arises in the next parliament it will be subject to the triple lock, requiring agreement of cabinet, parliament and people. But if they detect any attempt by others to fudge the convergence criteria he vows to "challenge and expose it".

Just last week Lady Thatcher was reported to have said Mr Blair, if he became prime minister, was a man who would "not let Britain down". On cue yesterday, there he was telling Sun readers: "I'm a British patriot."

As he hopes for the pre electoral endorsement of at least some of the Murdoch press, Mr Major might well think the world has gone mad. But we're not. Many Tories make no secret of their belief that a period in opposition is necessary to the re discovery of the party's soul.

Worse still for Mr Major, some of the Thatcherite dispossessed have seemingly persuaded themselves that Mr Blair, not he, is the man for the inevitable showdown over Europe.

Lady Thatcher, we are assured, will be working ferociously for Mr Major's re election. But people deemed close to her have repeated the claim that the former prime minister thinks there is nothing to fear should Mr Blair make it to Number 10. And such denials as there have been have been less than convincing.

Over the next six weeks Mr Major will work flat out to reawaken the fear factor - over Mr Blair's plans for tax, jobs, the Social Chapter, the future of Europe and constitutional reform. But the Tory party's own lack of belief, rather than the opinion polls, is surely the greatest measure of the mountain he now has to climb.

We may not treat too seriously Paul Johnson's view that `Tony is the good son Margaret never had.' But the Sunday Telegraph happily gives it house room. And there are plenty in that camp warming themselves with the thought that the `son of Thatcher' is set to inherit.

In their eyes, as we all know, Mr Major lost that mantle a long time ago.