Labour’s Manifesto: The Shortest Abdication Note in History?

And so it begins. At last. The phoney war is over and now the grapeshot will be flying thick and fast. There will be casualties aplenty, decency, honesty and your patience amongst ’em. I’m sticking to my view, which is neither especially daring nor unconventional, that the Conservatives will win and finish with a majority of 30 or so seats. Sticking, I say, even though obviously I reserve the right to change my mind several times between now and polling day.

For ages now – or at least it feels like ages – I’ve been arguing that whatever doubts one may reasonably have about Cameron the Tories appear to have passed the important test of Not Seeming Grotesquely Ill-Prepared for Government. True, there’s a lack of depth and sometimes, one suspects, an absence of rigour on the Tory front bench and true too their performance during the phoney war has not always been especially reassuring.