The pollsters are predicting a Tory wipeout, the rightwing press are doing their nut and Labour greybeards are warning us not to count our chickens. In my rational brain, I take their point: there isn’t the mood of mad enthusiasm for the next thing that you would normally associate with a great electoral shift. Besides, you should never approach any contest convinced you can’t lose. Unfortunately, when a centrist Dad tells me what attitude to adopt, I find myself constitutionally unable to fall in line, so I’m not only counting chickens all over the place, I’m playing the futures market and counting eggs. The obliteration of the Conservative government may not be a given, but it is likely enough that it’s time to start planning election night.
Run the numbers: a landslide victory for a party you don’t hate will only come along once or twice in your lifetime. It’s a grand climacteric, and OK, ancient philosophers were undecided over whether those were good or bad things, but they agreed: you can’t ignore it; don’t waste it.
