“We are not doing a running commentary on toilet arrangements.”

This response from Labour when asked how the Treasury might be preparing for the arrival of the UK’s first woman Chancellor, sums up where we are in the 2024 general election campaign. These are the in-between days, when everything appears to be business as usual, but it is not.

Come Friday there will either be a new - small “n” - Labour government under Keir Starmer, or Rishi Sunak will have achieved one of the greatest comebacks in electoral history. (There is another possibility, that every poll is wrong and there is a hung parliament, as in 2010, but that’s a leap of the imagination for another day.) Contrast the quiet around the Commons and at Holyrood (now in recess until September 2), with the hammering and drilling happening behind the scenes in Whitehall and in TV studios.

Some of this is real hammering as broadcasters put the final touches to election night studios. The rest is metaphorical as the Civil Service readies itself for the possible handover to a new government. Beyond that, there is the delicate matter of discreetly moving one family out of 10 Downing Street and settling another in.

The Sunday politics shows reflected the mood of these final few days with sweeping round-ups and final interviews with every party.

Not everyone chose to take part however, starting with Nigel Farage. He was boycotting the BBC after what he says was hostile treatment on last week’s Question Time leaders’ debates. The Reform UK leader was questioned by host Fiona Bruce and the audience on comments made by some of his party’s candidates and canvassers in a Channel 4 News report.

That left the host of Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips to ask Farage why his party attracted those from the far right. He replied: “Ironically, destroying the BNP means people who are minded that way don’t any longer have a home to go to, and so some will gravitate in our direction and (when) we find out who they are they’ll be gone.”

The other no show of the morning was perhaps the person most viewers wanted to hear from. Keir Starmer had been invited on to BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg but declined and sent Labour’s campaign chief, Pat McFadden, in his stead.The Labour might well have had something better to do with his morning, but it looked odd.

It also pointed to what has been a feature of these past weeks - Sir Keir rarely making an appearance on his own. The occasions when he has not been flanked by Rachel Reeves or Angela Rayner have produced some of the most awkward moments of his campaign.

The in-between days are awkward for any party hoping to be a government. Say nothing and you will be accused of hiding your intentions from the electorate. Say too much and you are taking victory for granted and harming turnout.

Hence some Sunday newspapers in England reporting that building houses would be the Labour government’s focus in its first 100 days.

In Scotland, the Herald on Sunday’s Kathleen Nutt had an exclusive interview with Jackie Baillie. Scottish Labour’s deputy leader said a Labour government would be open to talks with ministers in Edinburgh about a "Scottish visa" giving limited immigration powers to Holyrood.

This was picked up in Martin Geissler’s interview with John Swinney for BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show. The SNP leader and Scotland’s First Minister said he welcomed Baillie’s remarks, though he was doubtful, given what Keir Starmer had said about limiting immigration, whether a Scottish visa scheme would happen.

Nevertheless, his response could be seen as a sign of less confrontational times ahead between Westminister and Holyrood. “If it is an indication of some of the practical steps that might come from intergovernmental relations with an incoming Labour government then nobody will engage in that more strongly than me,” said Swinney.

In Rishi Sunak’s sit down with Kuenssberg he was determined not to go out without a fight. Asked whether he thought he would still be Prime Minister on Friday, he said: “Yes. I’m fighting very hard and I think people are waking up to the real danger of what a Labour government means.”

Kuenssberg asked all the interviewees if they had made any mistakes in the campaign. It was a light-hearted way of getting her guests to reveal something about themselves, and it worked. The prime minister said he was “proud” of this campaign, thus leaving the door open for Kuenssberg to remind him of the many mistakes - a strategic error in itself.

Pat McFadden confirmed his place as Labour’s straight-down-the-line man when he said he had not taken “the Ed Davey risk” of going on a waterslide or falling off a paddle board. “I’ve probably had a more sheltered campaign than people who have been out and about in the country,” he said.

Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader, won the unofficial best sense of humour competition with a response that prompted the biggest laugh of the morning from Kuenssberg.

Asked for his biggest mistake of the campaign, Flynn said: “I don’t believe that I spent enough time in Germany with the Tartan Army. I was cut down to just one day when I wanted to be there for the full 10-11 days. We should have carted me off to Germany for the duration.”

Kuenssberg replied: “If only we could pass a law that said Scotland would never have quite such adventures at the football that they did in the last couple of weeks.”

There was just time for a sneak peek at the election set for Thursday-Friday and a word from Kuenssberg’s co-host Clive Myrie. “It’s going to be an incredible night,” said the BBC news presenter.

As if to advertise the joys of live, anything can happen television, Harriet Harman put her foot in it in the closing minutes of the show. The Labour veteran, who is retiring as an MP at this election, pointed to herself and Tory former minister Brandon Lewis and said: “Unlike Joe Biden, Brandon and I know when to go.”

There was a second’s pause before Harman exclaimed, “Oh God, did I say that?

Kuenssberg pounced. “You're a senior figure in the Labour movement, sister party of the Democrats, do you think [Joe Biden] should go?”

“I just think they need to sort it out and save the world and America all of us from Trump,” said a blushing Harman.

Somebody book that woman for election night.