An eventful month indeed. Theresa May took everyone by surprise by announcing an election. I still can’t understand why the opposition didn’t table an amendment to have the election later – say in September – to give them time to get their act together whilst not appearing to be running scared

As it stands the prediction is for a landslide and 5 years of "strong and stable" leadership. Jeremy Corbyn’s initial election promises were for new bank holidays for Saints days – which is innovative for an atheist. And lots of nationalisation. The Liberal Democrats – as so often – have some good ideas but can’t get an audience. Other parties are targeting seats – The Womens Equality Party – who went missing during the referendum – have Sophie Walker deciding to tackle one of the safest Tory seats in the country.

The promises about which party is going to spend how much on schools, hospitals etc are difficult to compute. Especially if you are Diane Abbott.

Each party could make it a lot easier of course and say “We will spend the following percentages of the country’s revenue on these services:"

Tory

Transport - 5%

Welfare - 15%

Defence - 8%

Housing - 12%

Education - 10%

Health Care - 15%

Pensions - 20%

Admin/Aid/ Other - 15%

increased TAX  or borrowing - 0%

Labour

Transport - 6%

Welfare - 17%

Defence - 5%

Housing - 14%

Education - 14%

Health Care - 17%

Pensions - 22%

Admin/Aid/ Other - 10%

increased TAX  or borrowing - 5%  

That would make it easy to understand and more difficult to deceive. So that won’t happen.
To suggest there is a financial bill agreed for leaving before a deal on trade etc is preposterous.

But back to Brexit. Divorces can be easy and pleasant or vicious and protracted. This one has started off heading for the latter. Guy Verhofstadt immediately came out in his Observer article to demonstrate exactly why the referendum had the result it did. And there was a rather frosty Downing Street dinner at the end of April between May and Jean Claude Junker. To suggest there is a financial bill agreed for leaving before a deal on trade etc is preposterous. It’s like asking us to pay for dinner before we have chosen from the menu.

But perhaps the good thing about a possible landslide is that it might give the PM the authority to negotiate a softer exit than the right wing would want. Or is that wishful thinking?