Teflon-coated Corbyn adds to the Tory jitters
With the big day a week away, when it will all be over bar the voting, Theresa May took it back to where it started - and where she prefers it never would have left.
She took it back to Brexit. And an accusation that under Jeremy Corbyn, Britain would have uncontrolled immigration.
This is to be differentiated from Mrs May's track record as Home Secretary and Prime Minister over the last seven years. Her de facto policy has been of immigration that has not been controlled.
Last year the number of people coming into the United Kingdom was 588,000, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Under Theresa May that will come down. Hold on. That was under Theresa May.
The Nuffield Trust is predicting a whole load more coming in, with no jobs to go to, and putting more pressure on the NHS to the tune of £1 billion a year. These are not exactly immigrants, but British ex-pat pensioners who supposedly will be coming home from their Spanish villas for treatment on the NHS if the Brexit deal goes bad.
For an election which is supposed to be all about Brexit and who should be trusted in leading the negotiations (Mrs May's opinion on that point is that it should be strong and stable leadership, if you've just come back from a holiday on Mars), Brexit hasn't really played that major a part and, if the opinion polls are to be believed, has not been a trump card for the Tories.
So with a week to go, we are moving into Tory jitters territory. This is a phenomenon, also seen around this time in past elections, that engulfs the Conservatives when they are leading in the polls but begin to seriously contemplate the possibility that Labour will not roll over according to the script, but could do better than anybody had been predicting just a few short weeks ago.
To add to the jitters, Mr Corbyn pulled a flanker. His U-turn on the television debate meant he was there (or due to be there - this is being written before it happened, or was due to happen, if you see what I mean), while Mrs May was not there (I think that can be predicted safely in advance).
This is indicative of two things. One is that it is a sign of rising hope and confidence in the Labour camp. And the second is that Jeremy Corbyn is Teflon-coated Corbyn, impervious to all attacks on him and, it seems, could forget his own name on air and get away with it.
If the election result does not turn out the way the Tories want, one reason they will pinpoint in their inquest will be that the campaign relied too heavily on an expectation that Jeremy Corbyn would fall flat on his face, and that people would care that much if he did.
