The Tory party’s manifesto reads like they’ve forgotten they caused this mess in the first place

The weird and warped document conveniently ignores the fact that the acute problems to which it offers unconvincing solutions – the NHS, social care, education, Brexit – came about because of them

If you are not leaping for joy at the prospect of five more years living in a fleshy fever dream from the haunted coal hole of the Conservative psyche, you have to admit – the polls don’t look great.

Yes I know, opinion polls come with health warnings. The seat-by-seat data suggests it’s not as good as it looks for the Tories. We don’t yet know how tactical voters will be. Remember 2015, remember 2016, remember 2017...

Nevertheless. According to the Britain Elects poll aggregator, the Conservatives are averaging a 42.4 per cent vote share against Labour’s 29.6 per cent. (The Liberal Democrats are on 14.7 per cent, Nigel Farage’s Conservative B-Team are on 4.6 per cent, with the Greens on 3.3 per cent). Crunch all that and we could be looking at a 40-plus Tory majority come 13 December. Labour’s vision of free broadband for all, a four-day week and a genuinely transformed Britain would be filed under “what if?”.