Much like in cryptoland, a month in politics is a long time. Just a few weeks ago it seemed like Mrs May had pulled off a strategic master stroke by calling a snap election. Now if the latest poll proves to be accurate her party could return to Parliament with a smaller majority than they had before the election (17 to 2)! How embarrassing that would be for a vote that was supposed to strengthen Mrs May's hand. Plot twist!
I should say from the outset that I am not a fan of Jeremy Corbyn. He is an ineffective leader clinging to an ideology that does not work for the present age. We have seen him send mixed messages over Brexit and consistently fail to move the needle as leader of the opposition. In fact, for the past year it has felt like the UK had no opposition party.
We saw the results of Corbyn's leadership on May 4th in Labour's abysmal showing in local elections where the party lost 300+ seats while the Conservatives picked up over 550. Given such a poor performance by Labour, the consensus across the board was that the June 8 general election was going to be a landslide (150 seat majority) for Mrs May and the Conservative party. Now she could be looking at a slim majority of 2 seats.
So what changed? Word on the street is that large chunks of the public are unhappy with Mrs May's proposed social care reforms and so they have rushed back to Labour. Of course, as we have seen a lot recently in UK politics, polls are not to be taken as the final word. Nevertheless, this is an exciting development in what was supposed to be a one sided bludgeoning of Labour. The next 2 weeks are going to be a real political slugfest and so grab some popcorn and let's see how it all shakes out.
I bet the folks in Brussels are doing just that.
H.