Does this sound at all familiar? The Conservative government is hopelessly divided and unpopular. The prime minister, attacked as wealthy and out of touch, makes a big call which ends in disaster. The opposition, whose leader is not entirely impressive, wins a huge majority and the outgoing prime minister loses his seat.  

According to some polls, that could be the story of this general election, but it’s what actually happened in 1906, the last time a prime minister gambled big and lost his seat.  

The hapless Conservative leader was Arthur Balfour, and his victorious rival was the Liberal party leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman. 

Balfour’s government resigned in December 1905, gambling that a minority Liberal government would soon collapse. But Campbell-Bannerman called an immediate election — and won a huge majority. 

In the so-called Khaki Election of 1900, the Tories had won 402 seats. After Balfour’s blunder, they were reduced to a pitiful 157 MPs. By contrast, the number of Liberal MPs rose from 184 to 400. They had a majority over the Conservatives of 243.

Balfour was one of the grandest political figures of the 20th century. He lived in bachelor splendour on a vast estate in Scotland, where he enjoyed golf on his own private course. He was the first prime minister to own a car, a 16HP Napier.

A tall, languid figure who was known at Cambridge as Pretty Fanny, he paid little attention to the newspapers and often failed to appear before 11am. He cared little for public opinion, or even the views of his fellow MPs. “I would as soon be guided by the views of my valet as by the Conservative party conference,” he once said. 

But Balfour, once described as a cross between Bertie Wooster and Bertrand Russell, had one outstanding advantage as an ambitious young MP. His Uncle Robert was the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, long-standing Conservative leader and prime minister. 

When Salisbury travelled to the Congress of Berlin in 1878 as foreign secretary, young Arthur was his secretary. As prime minister, Salisbury made his nephew Secretary of State for Scotland and later Chief Secretary for Ireland and leader of the House of Commons. So it was almost inevitable that in 1902 Balfour should inherit the keys of Number 10 (this is often said to be the origin of the phrase “Bob’s Your Uncle”). 

By contrast, Campbell-Bannerman has gone down in history as The Forgotten Prime Minister. That’s perhaps because he died in 10 Downing Street after little more than two years in office. He does, though, have one claim to lasting fame. As pub quizzers will know, he was the first person referred to as prime minister, rather than First Lord Of The Treasury, in official documents. 

He too was Scottish, a former Chief Secretary to Ireland, and also reputed to be rather lazy, but that’s about all he had in common with his Conservative rival. 

CB, as he was known, was born in Glasgow, the son of a wholesale draper. Back then he was plain Henry Campbell, but in his mid-thirties he inherited his uncle’s estate on condition that he took the name Bannerman. 

Fluent in French, German and Italian, perhaps his greatest talent was in getting on with other people. He was affable, amusing, and a biographer once said of him: “Sir Henry was one of the nicest and most sensible people ever to be leader of a political party or prime minister.”

He had no real ambition to reach Number 10. He wanted instead to be Speaker of the Commons, but cabinet colleagues persuaded him to stay on in government. 

He became party leader in 1899, and like Clement Attlee more than 40 years later, he was underestimated by more glamorous colleagues. 

With the Conservatives in disarray in 1905, senior Liberals plotted to replace him. Both CB and his wife were in poor health: they both weighed around 20 stone and she refused to be cared for by anybody else. 

So just four months before he became prime minister, three plotters met at a fishing lodge in Relugas, Morayshire, and agreed to resign unless CB was pushed up to the Lords. The conspirators were future prime minister Herbert Asquith, future foreign secretary Edward Grey, and R B Haldane, a future Lord Chancellor and founder of the Territorial Army

The idea was that Campbell-Bannerman would be prime minister in name only, while Asquith would have the real power as leader of the Commons. 

In the end, they were easily outmanoeuvred. CB promised to appoint Asquith as Chancellor, and the so-called Relugas Plot collapsed. 

To all outward appearances, the Liberal Party was united. Not so the Conservatives, who had been in power for most of the past 20 years.

The Liberals had been divided over the Boer War, but once fighting ended in 1902 the party united and were able to take advantage of a series of unforced errors by the inexperienced Balfour. 

Nonconformists objected to the 1902 Education Act — which placed schools in the hands of local education authorities — because ratepayers of all religions would be subsidising Church of England schools. Liberals also attacked the 1904 Licensing Act for being too generous to the brewers. 

But the main issue was free trade, over which the Conservatives were hopelessly divided. 

Joseph Chamberlain, the party’s most charismatic figure, wanted to create a common market with his Empire preference scheme. Countries like America and Germany would pay heavily to sell goods into the UK, while members of the Empire would have preferential rates. 

Liberals seized on the scheme, claiming that the new tariffs would mean more expensive food. 

In an attempt to unite his party, Balfour made what appeared to be a reckless gamble in December 1905. Expected to call an election, he instead resigned as prime minister in the hope that a Liberal minority government would struggle to govern. 

One of the early constituencies to declare was Balfour’s Manchester East, where voters threw him out with a swing of just over 22 per cent

Campbell-Bannerman took office, and called his opponent’s bluff with an immediate election, warning that a Conservative win would mean “Dear Food for Everybody” and “Taxes for the Working Man”. Polling took nearly four weeks, through January and into early February (the first one-day election didn’t happen until December 1918). When the first results came in, members of the National Liberal Club danced on the tables. 

One of the early constituencies to declare was Balfour’s Manchester East, where voters threw him out with a swing of just over 22 per cent (he was quickly returned, with 79 per cent of the vote, in a by-election in the City Of London constituency, where the original winner stood aside for him in return for a peerage). 

The new prime minister had an extraordinary array of talent at his disposal. His ministers included Grey at the foreign office, and three future prime ministers: Asquith at the Treasury, Lloyd George at the board of trade, and Churchill as under-secretary at the Colonial Office. 

In one form or another, the Liberals were in power for the next 15 years and were able to introduce a series of social reforms: free school meals, old age pensions, the introduction of national insurance and labour exchanges, and a reduction in the power of the House of Lords. 

And Balfour? Humiliating defeat did nothing to curtail his career. In Churchill’s words: “He passed from one cabinet to the other like a powerful, grateful cat walking delicately and unsoiled across a rather muddy street.”

In Asquith’s war cabinet, he was first Lord of the Admiralty and became foreign secretary under Lloyd George (it was during this time that he issued the famous Balfour Declaration, pledging British support for a Jewish homeland). He was created Earl of Balfour in 1922.