A wipeout for Theresa May this week in a set of local election results worse somehow than the quality of the services being provided by the councils in question. I think it was best summed up by two Conservative spokesmen, one of whom said the night had "gone downhill" and the other of whom described it as an "uphill battle". That wordplay is precisely the sort of disconnect you'd expect though, the Prime Minister believing that the public are annoyed her repeated failure to get a Brexit deal where we get to stay part of the EU. The party could have lost yet another thousand councillors but the numbers are irrelevant, it's like troop losses during the 1st world war and explaining the true situation at this stage in the game is like trying to explain how ironing boards get wrinkles in them. Although the European elections next month will of course offer a fresh perspective on things. It's like the Rudyard Kipling poem about how if you can hold your head whilst others around you are losing theirs, then perhaps you've not fully grasped the seriousness of the situation

To me the main observation was that the prime minister was heckled by a member of the public shouting "Why don't you resign?" and when he was removed and Mrs May's supporters, whoever they are these days, shouted "Out! Out! Out!" the prime minister actually thought they were shouting at the hecker

The prime minister's sole existence and purpose for office is to force the UK into some kind of deal, however diluted, that enables it to continue paying money to Brussels in order to avert the economic disaster promised if the UK were to leave. A promise as trustworthy as the before and after photos on a slimming commercial. At this stage in the process, I don't think that the Prime minister is even being duplicitous, I think she looks at the ludicrous projections of 10 million people being unemployed and, like a naive teenager at one of Jeremy Corbyn's rallies, actually believes everything. I think she genuinely believes the scare stories because the alternative would be to admit that she'd surrounded herself with fools and wasted both her career, reputation and the best part of 5 years. 5 years and counting; alas I'm looking at the calendar and it may well be the start of May, but it won't be the end of May for quite some time, if you see what I did there.