One remark from the Christmas party season knocks insistently around my head. It came from Nigel Farage on a staircase in the Ritz. For those who didn’t enjoy 2016, a year of political revolution, he gleefully promised: ‘2017 will be a hell of a sight worse.’ My, my. What did he mean? Had he taken one Ferrero Rocher too many? Or does Farage, like an increasing number of MPs, expect a general election next year, including further dramatic upsets?
The biggest reason for pooh-poohing a 2017 election isn’t the Fixed-term Parliaments Act but Prime Minister’s character. Theresa May is extremely cautious and she doesn’t want to test the electorate just yet. But against that I pose a simple question: in what way, please, are things going to get better for the Tories by 2020? Projections of the public finances look ghastly, though of course they may be wrong.
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