Edward Heath, prime minister from 1970 to 1974, was widely considered unelectable until elected. Margaret Thatcher, PM from 1979 to 1990, was way behind her Labour opponent James Callaghan in the popularity polls of 1979, but was elected. John Major, PM from 1990 to 1997, took over from Thatcher in 1990, and was re-elected in 1992, although the bookmakers at Ascot were offering 6-1 against the Tories the day before the election.
The latest British candidate to be considered unelectable is Ed Miliband. We shall see. His luck may turn. In David Cameron he has an opponent who is manifestly losing his nerve. A prime minister who can sack his attorney general, Dominic Grieve, because the latter believes in the European court of human rights (which has nothing to do with Brussels), and who cannot accept the wise advice of such an elder statesman as Kenneth Clarke, is giving too many sops to the Eurosceptic Cerberus that is the Tory right wing.
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