JOHN Major has been tempered by fire and adversity. Faced with yet another

Friday, he calmly assures us that life goes on as normal. The phoney war, he declares, is at an end, the election campaign-proper begun. But on the morning after Wirral, many in Major's Britain found it hard not conclude it is already over.

Peter Snow, the BBC's by-election veteran, may have developed the magical Swingometer to the point of absurdity. His graphics on Thursday night showed the Tory battle-bus almost submerged in a tide of electoral disgust and hostility, the next House of Commons groaning under the weight of some 400 Labour MPs.

Labour's deputy leader, John Prescott, was horrified by the thought of a majority of 200-plus. It won't happen that way, everybody knows that. But most people, and most especially Tory MPs with majorities of less than 8,000, can see the writing on the wall.

If the Prime Minister believes he can still recover to win a fifth term, he is scarce for company. No government has lost a by-election on such a scale, so close to polling day, to return to power. And for all Mr Major's insistence that Wirral South could be ascribed to Britain's by-election culture, the cold has entered the soul of those 125 Tory MPs defending seats which come before the Wirral on Labour's target list.

Wirral South was Blue Chip territory, Merseyside's Surrey blessed with two grammar schools and more golf courses than any other constituency in the UK. The late Barry Porter held the seat in 1992 with a majority of more than 8,000. Surely here could be found at least the hint of political recovery which has eluded the Tories since the calamitous events of Black Wednesday?

But no. Ben Chapman, a card-carrying member for less than a year, and as "New" Labour as it's possible to be, romped home with a thundering 7,888 majority, claiming 53 per cent of the vote, on the second-highest turnout in a by-election in this parliament. Michael Heseltine, in what was thought to have been a gaffe, had conceded early on that the voters might want to kick the government.

But nothing could have prepared them for the scale of this electoral assault. "Kicked in the Wirrals" screamed yesterday's Sun. And by turning out in force, the erstwhile Tory voters denied ministers even the fig-leaf pretence that abstention had been a factor. Instead commentators and pundits concluded that the Wirral electorate had seen the by-election as a full dress rehearsal for the main event.

IN A show of bravado, Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, travelled to Merseyside yesterday to declare the start of the latest fightback. Citing the statistical evidence, Mr Major insisted the Tories would claim the seat back come the general election.

On that reckoning, the newly elected Mr Chapman will enter the history books as the shortest-serving member of parliament. And the historical records may have provided some comfort to Mr Major yesterday, as he became the fourth-longest continuously serving prime minister this century.

But any thoughts of reaching further political milestones were surely arrested as Mr Paddy Ashdown observed that not since 1832 had a government failed to win a single by-election in the course of a parliament.

This was the Conservative Party's 18th consecutive by-election hammering. The swing to Labour was an astonishing 17 per cent, just nine weeks before the last available date for a general election.

No governing party has survived a 10 per cent swing in such proximity to polling day. So the history books also tell us Mr Major is close to joining the ranks of Edward Heath, Sir Alec Douglas Home and James Callaghan who received similar intimations of political mortality.

The Ulster Unionists are plainly determined to keep him in Downing Street until the end. Hence Labour and the Liberal Democrats will support the SNP attempt to force a "no confidence" vote on Monday week.

Mr Major likes his reputation for doing the unexpected, and might be vaguely tempted to pick a surprise date in April. But it looks as if the mundane and boring is what he intends. If May 1st is, as we have always been told, Mr Major's preferred date with destiny, then Mr Trimble and company will ensure he can have.

But the Ulstermen will be powerless to help him, come the day. It is not clear what he can now do to help himself. Even before the start of what will inevitably be a slick and ruthless Labour campaign, the "time for a change" sentiment is clearly growing.

The sleaze, scandal and sheer incompetence appear to have taken a heavy toll on the British public. While Mr Stephen Dorrell was right to say the government's demise was confidently predicted just eight days before the 1992 contest, this plainly is not 1992.

"New Labour" continues to adorn itself in Conservative clothing. As Liberal Democrat Malcolm Bruce complained this week, Mr Blair seems to threaten little more than a change of administration.

The City this week held its breath as Shadow Chancellor Brown prepared to declare his commitment to maintain Chancellor Clarke's inflation target. The press adjudged Mr Blair the winner in the recent debate on constitutional reform. Mr Clarke had a brave stab at picking holes in Mr Brown's pledge to honour Tory spending commitments, detecting a £12 billion sterling black hole in Labour plans, the result of lost revenues from privatisations Labour will not honour.

But the Tory press exhibits little interest. By yesterday the Sun, which has rallied of late, had all but run out of patience. The people wanted change and the size of the Wirral vote was the measure of their desperation for it. If Mr Major had run out of ideas, it argued, he should quit acting like Mr Micawber and get the election over and done with.

With little hint of hope, the leader-writer allowed there might yet be fire in the Tory belly: "Instead of lions on posters, let's have lions that roar." The lions on the Tory posters, of course, are already weeping.