I once met Theresa May at a seminar organised by the think tank Politeia on a subject that I cannot now remember. There were a dozen or so of us sitting round the table, and I was completely out of my depth, but at one point I made a ham-fisted intervention which was listened to politely by the other participants, and earned from Theresa May, facing me across the table, a kindly smile.
When she was 20 points ahead in the polls a couple of months ago, it seemed inevitable that she would be returned in the general election with a substantial majority. However, I had an intimation that Labour might do better than expected when, while I voted Conservative, four out of the nine members of my immediate family voted Labour. One did so only because he had met his Conservative candidate and found him rude, obnoxious and a hard Brexiteer. The others three voted Labour, not despite Corbyn but because of him. They thought he was honest, principled and on the side of the poor.
