What a spiffing day.

What a spiffing day.

PG Wodehouse would have had a perfect phrase for it. What a spiffing day everybody. Today was rather like a perfect dress rehearsal for an English summer. Just when you thought that summer would never turn up, here it was in North London, bursting out from the highest of flawless, blue skies, shimmering, simmering, glowing, beating down constantly with a gladdening insistence and announcing itself over the leafy environs of Finsbury Park, Wood Green and dropping in for quite a while in arty, bohemian Camden.

 We haven't seen any rain for some time now but who cares. Britain longs to wear its summer T-shirts, snazzy shorts and the familiar flip flops that normally get their first airing in the Mediterranean.  Noel Coward always believed that mad dog was the Englishman who goes out in the mid-day sun and Wodehouse would have probably sat on a country house balcony, cigarette or cheroot in hand, smoke blowing effusively across a placid English lake side, brandy raised and cricket ball ready for the summer game.

So here we are weeks away from a British general election and I've yet to hear any party political vans with loud tannoys and braying, booming voices pleading for your vote. You'd think they turn the volume down and do their campaigning rather more discreetly and demurely but oh no they would have to shatter this early summer idyll. Some of us want to enjoy this early burst of sunshine without that ear- splitting, boisterous crying and crowing, that incessantly noisy blast of Vote for Us because if you don't you'll be sorry and besides they're quite clearly the fittest, strongest, most superior political party of all time.

If you were to listen closely they remind you of  one of those old and great English institutions. The cry of the political party van reminds you of the rag and bone man, once the most resonant of soundtracks on any of your streets or roads. Every so often the rag and bone man would wind his way through the back streets of our neighbourhood, piercing the air with sharp cries that soared into the suburbs soulfully and stridently.

Then the old man with a stubble on his chin and a ragged coat on his back would trundle his way down your road again, puffing out his cigarette, hunched over, ever so slightly downtrodden and yet hopeful of achieving something very concrete and profitable. You always felt sorry for the rag and bone man because here was a man who always looked as if he was battling a lost cause. The bell would ring hollowly down your road and Britain did its utmost to express its sympathy.

But here we are at the beginning of May and wherever you look there are posters in windows with the red of Labour, the blue of Conservative  and the yellow of the Liberal Democrats. The colour co-ordination has a rich symbolism about it. For Labour it looks as if it could be over before it even starts because nobody is going to vote for a party with Jeremy Corbyn as its leader and blank page after blank page in its manifesto.

The red of Labour not only spells danger but it also looks like the bloodiest of defeats and if Theresa May is ever slightly worried then all she has to do is look at Corbyn in the face and then punch the air with a private moment of self congratulation thinking it's a nailed on formality. In fact Theresa may decide to take herself off on another walking holiday in Wales and just smell the sunflowers. This is a cakewalk rather than a walking holiday. How sweetly conclusive victory will be for her.

 This is going to be the easiest victory in the history of General Elections and even now Corbyn can almost sniff that overpowering smell of meek defeat and resignation. What's the point Jeremy and yet our Jeremy will be pulling out all of the stops, bravely smiling on the parapet and knowing realistically that eventually by the morning of the ninth of June, Labour will be a busted flush, a smoking, charred ruin, a ripped, tattered and dishevelled mess that may take years to mop up. Oh for the joys of democracy and party political bantering. How on earth does British politics do it?

 If only a theatre impresario could turn this into a block busting West End musical. They'd make millions overnight. Maybe though, this will become the most boring soap opera of all time. It can only get worse or maybe better. It may be the right time to scrape the bottom of the barrel. There are just over three weeks of this jaw dropping, agonising, aching, blood and thunder electioneering to go. Some of us are totally disenchanted with these conflicting voices, these Punch and Judy characters who seem to take enormous delight in verbally attacking their opponents. But there are no sausages in sight and there are elements of Whitehall farce that remain comically under the surface.

And yet out there in Middle England they'll still be making jams and cakes, dancing around the Maypole, exchanging pleasantries with postmen and butchers because that's a timeless English tradition and then simply pouring cider down throats yet to be oiled. They'll be chasing cheeses down rolling English hills. comparing marrows at village fetes and then gazingly admiringly at the Quantock slopes. It is richly, successfully, triumphantly and fondly England.

It is England in early May taking the initiative, starting out on the journey towards autumn and the whistling winds of October, November and December. Firstly though we have to prepare ourselves for the Great British summer where anything and invariably everything happens. This General Election business is just trying our patience and by the beginning of June we'll all be counting down the days to the ninth of June when finally we can all blow out our cheeks and find that oasis of sanity we thought we'd never ever experience again.

This whole complex system of party political childish name calling and spiteful comments, is, quite possibly dragging us down and the sooner Britain makes up her mind who they want to lead the country the better. But this time it's all very clear cut and embarrassingly clear. The result is almost as inevitable as night and day. If all goes according to plan, a bright blue ribbon will flutter over the shores of Britain and the Tories will evoke Thatcherite memories of dominance over her dominion, unchallengeable superiority and that glorious wave from the window of the Conservative party headquarters.

But I'll leave the last words to our literary friends. What would Wodehouse thought of the British at a time when the country votes, the country stands on the threshold of life changing moments, geographical convulsions in Europe and an American president who simply defies belief? Wodehouse would probably have chuckled under his breath, mocked the middle classes, drunk from the foaming ale of life and then imbibed a hundred dizzying cocktail of cocktails.

And then we wonder what that quintessential Englishman Noel Coward would have thought of the English in her 21st century finery. Long gone are the days when the English could be accurately described as mad dogs because none of us go out in the mid-day sun - or very few of us I suspect. Coward would have scribbled down a few pearls of wisdom, looked across the edge of the Empire and transformed this party political hallubaloo into the most delightfully elaborate of multi layered West End plays.

Oh well it's time to sign off folks. Eventually the days and weeks will pass away quite rapidly and once again the British will wake up on the morning of the ninth of June, rub its eyes and stare very thoughtfully at an endless horizon. Finally we will know everything that had become almost ridiculously self evident months ago. Britain is in need of confirmation, a signature, a bold pronouncement and a Prime Minister who can soothe our lingering anxieties, a strong and stable leadership. Now that's a slogan we'll never forget.