The green and aid trimming was already on the cards fot the next budget but it conflicts with Cameron's election pledges. I don't think the election will be rejected. Labour want the excuse to get rid of Corbyn. The Lib Dems want to be the Europhile party and want to reverse the losses they made at the last election. The SNP want a mandate for a referendum. UKIP don't have an MP any more.

There's nothing wrong with silent remainers, it's the remoaners that need to go if possible. Hopefully most remain voters will recognise that it's too late to turn back and we need a strong front to get a decent deal from the EU. It would help if the UKIP party recognised that it weakens the government position on leaving the EU. It won't win any seats but it might stop the Conservatives winning them too.

I predict a disaster for Labour. Many traditional Labour supporters will welcome this. How long after the General Election will Corbyn realise the value of his overwhelming mandate to lead the Opposition?

The Liberals will do well, if they present themselves as the credible Remoaners.

The BBC does not trust BREXIT, but can't support Corbyn.

Will the next Leader of the Opposition be chosen by a Liberal and SNP Alliance?

Dung, she's been busy. The Climate goals and madness are a cross party, and EU lunacy. It takes time to extricate the country from all that. The unaffordability of green crap is the strongest argument but that also takes time for new department appointees to recognise it. Just after May took over, it was the route of least opposition to keep things unchanged in departments that weren't critical. Time for a change.

gc, the BBC hate Corbyn because although he stands for everything they've ever wanted, he's not a great leader and it turns out those lefty ideals are insane. They always were but they sound so much more convincing when voiced by a good orator.

Dung & Tiny CO2,

I don't think that scrapping the Climate Change Act could have changed very much until the EU divorce is completed.

Obviously if the Greens, Liberals, Labour and SNP want to argue that Global Warming/CCA is the most important General Election/BREXIT2 Referendum Issue, they are welcome, but the smart money is pulling back from unreliable "investing", now that the UK Government does not guarantee profits by ripping off taxpayers.

Oh dear, the diesel campaign buses will be out in force poisoning the electorate, in several senses. Political pollution indices will reach all time highs.

Apr 18, 2017 at 1:18 PM | Dung

As PM and leader of the Conservatives, those who don't trust her, can now say so, on the public record. Tory MPs who oppose BREXIT now have only six weeks to save/destroy their future careers. Historians may not remember them, but their Constituency Parties won't forget.

But Dung, political pollution levels will be unprecedented and cause massive overheating (already CO2 emissions from the chatteratti will damage Europe and the rest of the planet beyond repair). Greens will be overwhelmed by rising tides of Maymania and Corbyn will be buried by widespread landslides. Chirality is now so uneven; the whole world is tipping dextral.

Do you think May was influenced by the Turkish result?

Dung & Supertroll, you both know this is nothing to do with the political delights of Turkey.

Everyone knows it must be due to Global Warming, as nothing so unprecedented has ever happened before. The Met Office have already prepared the Press Release confirming April 2017 as the hottest on record, and this news just confirms everything there is to know about Climate Science - their guesswork is 97% wrong.

GC, Dung, Perhaps a better analogy might be North Korea, and May has adopted the nuclear option.
I wonder what it was in Snowdonia that tipped the balance towards a snap election - a glaciated wilderness. Perhaps she was reminded of Labour.

I think calling a GE is the right move at the right time and not without some courage. I believe there were a lot of voters at the referendum who would like to leave the EU but were afraid of the consequences. I hope they will be reassured now that Armageddon did not happen and get behind a re-mandated government. It is also an opportunity to remove remainers in leave constituencies from all parties. It also presents the prospect of reform/abolition of the House of Lords and reform of energy policy. I also hope the SNP will lose some seats as most Scots do not want another independence referendum and 40% + want to leave the EU. It is not without risk but fingers crossed it will pay off.

M Courtney, interesting, but I don't agree. I think the polls were just too tempting. I see no downside for May in this. If Corbyn had refused to agree to the election it couldn't have happened - but she would have had the satisfaction of saying he was frightened, and rendered his leadership even more ineffectual (if such a thing is possible). But he agrees to vote for it, so the Fixed Term Parliaments Act is side-stepped by seeing 2/3 of MPs voting for an election (many of whom are turkeys voting for an early Christmas).

I can't see Labour doing well at all; which either sees Corbyn struggling on, even more hopelessly, or seeing him ditched, and possibly replaced by a more effective leader (the only downside here, but given that the next election won't be until 2022, and a week is a long time in politics, does that matter?).

UKIP will probably see their vote halved, with almost all of those votes going to the Tories, inflating May's majority. She then avoids any criticism of her not having been elected as Prime Minister, but just having been anointed by Tory MPs (as at present) and bolsters her authority, while going a long way to knocking UKIP out.

The SNP can hardly do better than they did at the last election, and will probably do worse, given their increasing unpopularity north of the border. This will create the impression that the last general election was their high water mark, and they are now in retreat, thus weakening Sturgeon and making her demands for Indyref2 look increasingly desperate.

If you're the PM, what's not to like?

Of course, the British electorate are unpredictable, and all of the above might prove to be wrong, but I suspect reasoning along those lines lies behind the decision, not desperation.

Mark Hodgson & M Courtney

Cameron gambled on a Brexit Referendum, in order to undermine his critics, and secure his mandate. He lost.

May has gambled on a General Election, in order to undermine ALL her Remaining Critics, and write her own mandate.

Her Remaining Critics include MPs and Lords from ALL Political Parties, Lawyers, the Media, Business, The City, financial markets and the BBC. Her Remaining critics also include EU Leaders and civil servants, who have no vote, but a big say in Brexit negotiations. Voters across the EU are noticing that the UK has not collapsed due to Brexit, as they were advised.

Labour have Emily Thornberry on Newsnight presenting Corbyn's case. At least Labour will have another 5 years to rebuild, under new leadership.

I wonder whether this story in The Observer/Guardian had anything to do with May's snap decision

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/15/only-45-of-labour-voters-think-corbyn-would-be-best-pm-poll

"Fewer than half of Labour voters think Jeremy Corbyn would be the best prime minister, according to a poll for the Observer that finds the Conservatives remain the most trusted party on all key issues except the NHS.

Research by Opinium suggests that given a two-way choice between Corbyn andTheresa May, 14% of voters would choose the Labour leader, compared with 47% for the prime minister. Among Labour voters asked the question, 45% said they would like to see Corbyn in No 10."

Corbyn maintains he has an overwhelming mandate from Labour Members, yet less than half of Labour voters would prefer Corbyn as PM as opposed to May?

Apart from Thornberry and Abbott, who else from the Shadow Cabinet is going to sing Corbyn's praises for the BBC?

The Labour Party will take part in the Election, and Candidates will campaign very hard to save their seats, on Local Issues, but most will not be fighting for a Labour victory. The campaigning for next Leader of the Labour Party has now begun, a year too late, and possibly, still a few years too soon.

Given the constitutional changes proposed by the Shadow Chancellor, the forthcoming Election Defeat is the best hope for Labour and the UK, to have something Left, to try and save.

Obviously Trump was never going to win in 2016, so who knows?

The fixed term parliament was surely a Cameron/Clegg notion? I suspect an important factor for Mrs May is grammar schools - she would like that included in a manifesto. I'll wait and see if I am as wrong about that as I was in predicting that there would not be a GE before 2020!