The number of possibilities teaches us three lessons about politics today. Firstly, never to underestimate the role played by mere chance. Secondly, that this is not an age of great leaders who make their own luck. And, thirdly, that we need to choose more carefully in future.
Do not confuse the quietude on the part of Matthew Parker Street for anything more than the usual calm between election periods.
In 1979, the Nationalists helped Thatcher oust Labour and got smashed. They won’t help the Prime Minister.
In addition to the broad question about the Chancellor’s political judgement, I think he faces three specific problems.
This comedian who came out as a Conservative also explains why Labour, by espousing vengeful moral certainties, has lost the working class.
By uniting behind Johnson’s plan, and replicating the approach of these two mayors, the the environment can become a winning issue for the party.
The coalition of voters that he put together has taken a battering – but it endures yet.
He entered Parliament as a man on a mission and is quite happy to ruffle some feathers along the way.
Labour have more potential allies in the smaller parties, but the prospect of a coalition with the Nationalists could sink him in England.
Exactly a decade after forming a government with the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats are languishing on the political fringes – where did it all go wrong?
It is past time that Westminster overcame its queasiness about pressing the devolved administrations on their dire performance.
And so it was that the cause of Remain, fronted by Cameron and George Osborne, lost out to that of Leave, led by…Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.
And in 2008, I wrote that non-Tories voting for Johnson would swing the Mayoral election. I hope they swing today’s poll in the same way.
It’s a contest between Sunderland and Newcastle. But even if Labour does badly in early results, how much will that tell us?
I wish to be your guardian angel, and whisk you off to another reality for a moment – one where a Conservative government did not exist…