Theresa may

Considering that their party is expected to win by a landslide, the Tory spin doctors sound unusually panicked. They are keen to point out that the polls aren’t always right, and the pollsters are still trying to correct what they got wrong at the last general election. They insist that national voting tells you little about what will happen in the key marginal seats. These are normally the pleas of a party that is failing, and trying to persuade voters that it is still in the race. But Labour isn’t doing a good job of spinning its own prospects — so the Tories are doing it for them. This is not as odd as it first sounds. The Tories are worried about complacency, about their vote not turning out.

This election was won two days before it was announced, on Easter Sunday. Theresa May put out an Easter message in which she suggested that British values had a Christian basis. It was her version of David Cameron’s message two years before, in which he said that Britain is a Christian country. She was rather more convincing. I don’t know whether Cameron is sincerely religious, but he didn’t seem it. He didn’t even seem to try very hard to seem it, as if fearing that his metropolitan support might weaken, and perhaps that George Osborne would make a snarky jibe about it at cabinet. But it still did him good to make those pro-religious noises. St Theresa should keep her piety out of politics, said a few pundits.

There was astonishment at the start of PMQs as Michael Fabricant’s wig flew up into the air. Fortunately its owner was rising to speak at the same time so no embarrassment was suffered. John Bercow indulged the house in this last session before the election and let MPs give speeches rather than ask questions. The results were mixed. Was it classic Westminster-in-action? Or classic Westminster inaction? The exchanges lasted twice as long as normal and were less than half as informative. Theresa May crammed every sentence with Crosby buzz-phrases. ‘Strong economy’, ‘stable Conservative leadership’ she said about a zillion times. Her remote-controlled backbenchers followed suit.

PMQs went on for an almost an hour today as John Bercow attempted to get in as many valedictories from retiring MPs as possible. But there were two significant pieces of news made in today’s session. First, in answer to Angus Robertson, Theresa May refused to say that the triple lock would continue if the Tories win this election. This is the clearest indication we have had yet that it won’t be in the manifesto and will, sensibly, be jettisoned after the next election. The Tories are 20-odd points clear and have an even bigger lead among the over 65s, jettisoning this expensive electoral bung is a risk that May can afford to take.  The second piece of news was Theresa May not repeating the line that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ with the EU.

Today's polls suggest that Theresa May could be on track to secure a Commons majority of 150, reversing – in just 20 years – the landslide that was inflicted on the Tories in 1997. These figures, from the Daily Telegraph, reveal no fresh agony for Labour: already the worst case scenario being floated in Labour circles would involve a catastrophic loss of about 100 MPs. This is an apocalyptic vision, mainly propagated by centre-leaning folk who have seen their influence wane over the past two years, and is something of a long-shot (the bookies currently favour a Labour seat band of 150-199, but only price 100-149 at 5/2). But let’s say it does happen: what happens next?

It was a badly kept secret in Westminster that very senior figures in the UK government wanted Francois Fillon to win the French presidential election. He was regarded as being the best candidate for Britain, and the one most likely to be pragmatic on Brexit. But with Fillon out, attention switches to Macron—the overwhelming favourite. Macron is emotionally and ideologically pro-EU. He has been clear that he doesn’t want a sweetheart deal for Britain. On his campaign visit to London, he talked aggressively about luring businesses to France post-Brexit.

Are the Conservatives sharp enough to be able to beat the Liberal Democrats in battleground Remain-voting seats? We hear today that they might put forward Zac Goldsmith as their candidate for Richmond Park - the same Zac Goldsmith who quit the party in protest at the Heathrow decision, then triggered a by-election and ran as an independent. But he lost to a Lib Dem. So now he has decided to rejoin the party and run again - and oddly, they've let him. He's in the final three. To select him would be a huge tactical own goal for the Tories: as Neil Kinnock found out, when voters turn something down, they don’t like to be asked again. And as Zac found out, it's hard for an arch-Brexiteer to win in an arch-Remain constituency: a new fact of political life.