Wednesday 7th June

Harold Macmillan, seems a long time ago now doesn’t it, who was Prime Minister in the late Fifties and early Sixties was once asked what was the hardest thing about his job.  He answered “Events, Dear Boy…Events”.  He meant of course, the unknowable issues that arise in even the best planned of times.

And so it transpires.  This General Election has been like no other I have known.  Just like almost everyone else when Mrs. May sprung this election on the country I was depressed.  How could Labour ever win, or even lose closely?  The press would crucify Jeremy, and besides he would probably help them.  Labour would appear disunited and hopeless.  The media commentators and the polls were predicting a massive majority.  Labour were polling around 25% – the worst in years.  The Tories were all gung-ho for Brexit – the country had voted Brexit and UKIP were fading fast.  What could possibly go wrong?  Or right?

And slowly the polls started improving.  As people started seeing Jeremy every night on their TV screens, as Labour’s Manifesto was well received and as the Tory one fell apart it was no longer a complete foregone conclusion.  Okay, so Labour weren’t going to win, Theresa May wouldn’t get a thumping majority – but she was still going to have a majority, maybe 50 or 60 seats….

And so things chugged along.  The opinion polls were, and still are all over the place.  Supposedly they had corrected their methodology to give more weight to the Tories – but how can anyone tell.  The only thing for certain is that the direction of travel has been towards Labour and Jeremy Corbyn, even his personal rating have risen as the campaign has gone on.  One or two polls have even put the Tories a single point ahead.

And then we had the two terrible terrorists atrocities – which of course should have played into Mrs. May’s hands.  But events have a nasty way of upsetting the status quo.  Slowly questions started to emerge as to why the terrorists were mostly known to the Security Services and yet the plots went undetected.  And now after the second one, the question is why were the Police cut by twenty thousand, which was almost one seventh by Theresa May as Home Secretary.  It is impossible to know if more police would have made us safer, or have helped stop either atrocity.  There are far more searching questions to be asked of the Security Services, but that will have to wait.

For now, suddenly this election is incredibly febrile, nobody has any real idea what will happen on Thursday, or if there will be any pattern.  It may be that there will be quite a few ‘rogue’ results.  It may be that all the opinion polls are wrong and she is returned with the big majority she has asked for.  I don’t, even in my heart, believe that Jeremy can win.  The best we could hope for would be for Mrs. May to lose her majority and limp on for as long as she will last, to screw up Brexit, and be rejected at the next election. But I suspect she will scrape through, maybe wounded but still P.M.

But at least Labour will have done their best in very difficult circumstances.