Westminster is a place of consensus, orthodoxy and prevailing wisdom. At any given moment, there is the Narrative, the story that everyone – or close to everyone – believes, or pretends to. The Narrative can ignore objective facts, but also change quickly when finally confronted with realities too big to overlook.

I reckon the last big shift in the Narrative happened sometime on the Monday of Tory conference in October. In a few hours, it dawned on a lot of people that not only was the Liz Truss premiership doomed, but the Tories were very likely to lose the next election.

Since then, journalists, lobbyists, civil servants and even unworldly think-tankers have been treating Labour as a government-in-waiting. The shift in the Narrative affects participants too: that was about the time a lot of Labour MPs also started to take their own chances of power seriously.

I wonder if the Narrative is about to shift again, at least slightly. One thing about the political village is that it rewards a bit of challenge to the consensus: there’s cachet to be had from being the person who says ‘You all think this thing but you’re wrong and here’s why’. Hell, some of us get paid for it.

So there is an incentive for people who help to set the Narrative in telling a new story. That story, I suspect, will be that Rishi Sunak actually has a chance of pulling off a 1992-style Tory win at the next election.

The building blocks of that story are all plain to see. 1) The economy isn’t doing quite as badly as forecasts thought; some business leaders are quietly upbeat about this year and next. 2) Wholesale energy prices are predicted to fall steadily from their current painful highs and inflation may have peaked. 3) There’s a Brexit deal that hasn’t – yet – fallen apart or caused another Tory war. 4) Sir Keir Starmer, for all his competent centrism, hasn’t electrified Britain with charismatic excitement. Assuming 5) – the competent centrist Jeremy Hunt pulls off a disaster-free Budget later in March – it will be easy enough to tell a story of Sunak leading the Conservatives to a surprising, if modest, success in, say, spring 2024.

Oddly, that story might be quite helpful to both Sunak and Starmer. Sunak’s greatest challenge is persuading his party that it’s still worth bothering: MPs and activists who’ve given up on the next election don’t make for a united party or government. So a more optimistic yarn might raise hopes and morale, and make his job a bit easier.

Yet Starmer could benefit too. When I suggested to a senior Labour friend that the Narrative is about to turn, he replied: ‘I hope so – too much complacency on our side.’

So don’t be surprised if you start seeing predictions and briefings suggesting that – whatever those pesky polls might show today – the next election is still very much up for grabs. For now, that story might suit both sides.