Mrs T's handbag reborn after diet of Brussels and leaks

Margaret Thatcher has risen again.

In a spectacle which took commentators almost as much by surprise as the declaration of the election itself, the swinging handbag was in evidence outside Downing Street.

It was a performance reminiscent of Maggie Thatcher's own negotiating technique with our European partners.

Having given Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, an indigestible dose of British fare at that infamous dinner a few days ago, here Theresa May laid it on the line about some things she has been finding difficult to stomach about her recent diet of Brussels and leaks.

Downing Street had been using soothing words about how it was not going to indulge in a briefing war.

This was not a briefing war. This was sticking it to Brussels, with Mrs May characterising herself as a modern warrior queen battling for Britain.

This week's crossing of swords over taxes, police funding, and so on, and even Diane Abbott's embarrassing lack of interview preparation, pale into relative insignificance in comparison to the eruption which will send reverberations across the Channel.

On the first day of the official general election campaign, she dragged it very deliberately onto one central issue - that of Brexit - and raised the stakes at the same time.

The handbag (imaginary, as in fact she was only carrying a small flat case) swung in various directions. The bounders in the continental press have been misrepresenting Britain's negotiating position. The European Commission's negotiating stance has hardened. European politicians and officials have made threats against Britain.

And they are foreign cheats as well because "all of these acts have been timed to affect the result of the general election which will take place on June 8."

They are trying to rig the British election, in other words.

She even managed to get in a swipe at the SNP, speaking of "standing up to the separatists who wish to tear our country apart."

You can see the plan. She wants voters to consider whether Jeremy Corbyn will stick up for Britain in the same way as she says she will in the Brexit negotiations.

Political historians can form their own view of whether the handbag negotiating technique pioneered by Mrs T was an improvement on more traditional methods. In any event, Britain remained in the EU after it had been deployed.

But it's probably safe to say that Mrs May won't be giving any EU officials a free lunch at Downing Street in the near future.