Just another manic Monday for mug-a-pensioner May

I'm just playing around with some headlines in the aftermath of last week's launch of the Tories' mug-a-pensioner manifesto (sorry, the Tories' policy "to create the first ever proper plan to ensure sustainability of social care.")

If you remember, she said she was going to be straight and honest with the British people. She might now regret being quite so straight and honest until after the votes are in the bag.

Labour and the Lib Dems have piled in and have been having a field day, talking of dementia taxes, and death taxes, forms of words which have the potential to carry the same poison as the poll tax once did.

And the opinion polls have narrowed so that, for the first time in the general election campaign, a widely-held assumption - which has been held even by some senior figures in the Labour party - is now starting to be called into question. The assumption has been that Mrs May is heading for either a landslide or, if not, at least a thumping victory.

Labour seized the moment to bring forward its pledge to scrap students' tuition fees so that it covers students starting at English universities in September.

And the party has ramped up the pressure by bringing out one of its big hitters, a term I use advisedly. Yes, John Prescott was rolled out onto the streets of Hull to accompany Jeremy Corbyn. Perhaps he was acting as his bodyguard.

Reports from the front suggest that no members of the public were harmed.

Meanwhile the Lib Dems launched an election poster suggesting that Mrs May is a man in drag. Oh, all right, it's got Nigel Farage's face imposed on her body. It has not gone down well with some who have suggested the poster is "transphobic" and "exploiting" the trans-gender community.

There is a palpable feeling that the Tories have been put on the back foot. Their top brass must be getting worried. My prediction is that they will conclude that their best response is to put the boot into Jeremy Corbyn in a manner which makes their previous treatment of him seem gentle.

In comparison to the manifesto launches of the major parties, the Greens' was a tie-less, informal affair.

Theirs was a direct appeal to the young vote. They go a lot further than Labour on students' tuition fees - under the Greens all student debt would be written off entirely. How much this would cost doesn't seem particularly clear, but it would be billions, and the money would come from "big business."

After the austerity years, it's pleasing to know that Britain's big businesses are doing so well once again.