There is now a big chance that Brexit will never happen

It used to be the case that British general election campaigns had very little effect on the result. 

The first one of which that was not true was the 1992 election when voters decided that they were not that into Neil Kinnock or Labour. 

The next one where the campaign mattered, and it mattered enormously, was the last one in 2017. Theresa May’s campaign will always be an object lesson in how not to win an election but to throw away an enormous lead in the opinion polls. 

The Zinoviev letter (a forgery) led many Liberals to vote Tory to keep out Labour in 1924  but the Tories would have won anyway. 

This time nobody knows what will happen. The opinion polls suggest a comfortable win for the Tories but absolutely no-one trusts the polls any more – after 2015 which everyone except the clairvoyant Dan Hodge expected to bring Ed Miliband to power, the referendum (which the polls didn’t get badly wrong actually, but people didn’t believe them) and 2017 where they predicted a thumping Tory victory.

The decision to call an election without getting the Brexit deal ratified in the House of Commons makes Tory MPs angry, according to an i newspaper report.

Why is an election being held?

Not because Parliament would not have agreed Boris’s deal. It probably would have done so.  

But if it had passed the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) Boris Johnson’s deal would have destroyed the Liberal Democrats’ unique selling proposition, a pledge to forget about Brexit altogether and just ignore the 2016 referendum. (By the way, they were the first party to call for a referendum on EU membership.) For them a pre-Brexit election is vital.

The SNP want an election before Alex Salmond goes on trial for sex offences, in January. They will win many Tory seats. Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat leader, may lose her seat to the SNP. 

Boris wants to win an election on the back of his deal and while Jeremy Corbyn is still Labour leader.

Jeremy Corbyn wants an election while he is still leader too, hoping he might be Prime Minister, as a result, supported by the SNP, whom he has promised a second referendum. He might get his wish.

Labour has no choice but to pretend to want an election, which they voted against on Monday, as they were not able to prevent one being called. Only Mr. Corbyn means it.

Today is the day when Boris promised the country would leave the EU “do or die”. Will this be a gift to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party or will they just stand against Remain MPs?

Today is John Bercow's last day as Speaker. (Will he resign as MP? Why should he?) At PMQs, Boris likened him to an ‘uncontrollable tennis ball machine’ and saying he has had ‘the longest retirement since Frank Sinatra’ (watch here).

Boris is the first PM since Churchill, and before him Disraeli, who will litter the dictionaries of quotations with good jokes. Tories are much funnier than liberals or socialists - compare Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan with Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter. Harold Macmillan was funny too.