Desperate Stoking

An anonymous text message to such Muslims as there are in Stoke Central, which has mysteriously found its way into the hands of the Lib Dems.

And a far from anonymous Conservative leaflet, signed by the Prime Minister, in which she falsely claims that all of the local Labour MPs voted against Article 50.

Labour has won, and everyone knows it.

Theresa May ought to be pleased, since as soon as that result is in, then she will no longer have to pay the slightest attention to the Right.

That force will be spent for at least a generation, and possibly forever.

Britain has already acquired a variation on the old French theme of sinistrisme, in which no one ever admitted to being right-wing as such.

Sarkozy was the Fifth Republic's first President ever to do so. But if you need to, then look up his predecessors.

Left-wing politicians proudly owned the name, while everyone else claimed to be a centrist, or even to be a bit on the leftish side, or to reject the terminology.

The only avowedly right-wing candidate for President in 1974 was Jean-Marie Le Pen, even though that election was won by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

In 1981, no candidate at all professed to be of the Right, even though the first and third places in the first round went respectively to Giscard and to Jacques Chirac.

From next Friday morning, this country is going to be like that.