Predicting elections is a difficult task at the best of times. Even more so when there is a strong possibility that those elections could well be deferred (the precedent exists with the 2001 General Election and the outbreak of foot and mouth disease). Without the dismal overhang of the coronavirus epidemic the local elections of May 2020 would be difficult ones to call.

Their immediate predecessors in May 2019 were at the depths of Tory indecision and infighting which saw them lose over 1000 seats mainly to a resurgent Lib Dems (sic). Labour marked time and we moved forward to a set of Euro elections where the Tories were trounced again and this time to a resurgent Brexit Party. Well it’s a different world now.