Bulldog Boris set loose to bite Jezza

For much of the campaign Boris Johnson has been the dog that didn't bark.

There will have been one of two reasons for this. The first might be that they have been saving him up, heavy artillery to let loose in the final stages to make a decisive difference in the Tories' favour.

The other possibility to explain his relatively low profile is that he is indeed considered to be heavy artillery, but definitely not to be let loose - being a loose cannon who might say the wrong thing.

As if!

With the terrorist attack in London being used unashamedly by Labour to make political points about police numbers, Boris' brief was obviously to bash Jeremy Corbyn for saying one thing in the wake of the attack while having a history of doing another, that is, consistently voting against anti-terror legislation.

He might also have asked, but didn't, how Mr Corbyn's preferred anti-terror policy of "talking" to people (e.g. the IRA, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc) would have worked when applied to the trio committing Saturday night's massacre.

Meanwhile Diane Abbott pulled out of an interview with the BBC at the last minute, to be replaced by Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry. This is a political stand-in manoeuvre which will in future be called "doing a Theresa May."

The reason given was that Diane was unwell. There are unkind folk who wonder whether she was unwell, or in fact "unwell", in the light of rumours that Labour's top brass are trying to keep her out of the limelight. You don't need a long memory to recall that she missed the Article 50 vote because of a last-minute migraine (or "migraine.")

However, when I saw her on Sky in a rare interview she struck me as a lady under pressure, so if she is genuinely unwell, let me be the first to apologise for myself.

Ukip's Paul Nuttall is a man who a lot of his critics think is not quite right, rather than being actually unwell, and gave a speech saying he would consider introducing internment of suspects.

This would involve locking people up for what they might do, rather than for what they have done.

Mrs May was busy playing the well-thumbed Brexit card, which she thinks is an ace. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems' Brexit spokesman - a fib if ever there was one as the Lib Dems do not believe in Brexit - took a pop about the disastrous consequences for us all.

"Last week it was reported that the average price of a bottle of wine has hit its highest price ever," he warned gloomily.

To which, in the spirit of Marie Antoinette, the appropriate retort might be: "Then why don't they drink British beer?"