The general election will be a vote on Scottish independence

‘Now is not the time’ except, apparently, when now is the time. The reasons for engineering a general election are many and obvious. The current government is tolerated, not welcomed. Theresa May needs a mandate of her own. A thumping Tory majority – the only conceivable outcome of any dash to the country – will not hugely strengthen her position with Britain’s erstwhile european friends and partners, but it will secure her position on the domestic front.

For Labour, too, this is an opportunity to lance a boil: it will, or should at any rate, end the Jeremy Corbyn era. For their part, the Liberal Democrats should welcome the opportunity to make their pro-EU – or, rather, anti-Brexit – pitch to the electorate. It is not difficult to see how they could gain some seats from doing so, rallying Remoaners (sic) to congregate in the last ditch of a lost cause.