Weak and wobbly

When Theresa May decided to go for an early election, she transformed the nature of her premiership. Up to that point she had been the steady hand on the tiller, righting a ship of state buffeted by the Brexit referendum. By going to the country to win her own mandate, she sought to become more than that. She wanted her own sizeable majority and, in so doing, invited comparison with the two prime ministers who have done the most to shape modern Britain: Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. She was asking to be judged against their electoral triumphs.

At the start of this campaign, May looked comfortable in this company. The polls suggested that she would get a higher vote share than either Thatcher or Blair and win a majority to stand any comparison with their landslides. As the campaign has gone on, this has looked less certain. The 20-point Tory leads at the start of the campaign are a distant memory. They’ve been replaced with polls suggesting May’s majority could be smaller than David Cameron’s. The Thatcher and Blair comparisons are no longer flattering.

James Forsyth and Tim Shipman ask whether anyone’s a winner in this campaign:

These recent polls are almost certainly wrong. Those on the ground say that it feels far more like the Tories have a 12-point lead and are heading for a majority of about 80 seats. But there’s a reason why single–digit poll leads are being given credence: this campaign has not been the choreographed coronation that many were expecting. On the contrary, it has exposed weakness in May’s methods and in her policies.