Lichfield, Tamworth and Burton Liberal Democrats

Wade Street Lichfield Church was full, upstairs and down, and even the hall next door looked busy with live feed to a large TV there.

Quite heated for Lichfield I'd say!

Lots of support for Paul and lots of challenge for Fabricant - with Fabricant even suggesting that some of the audience had been imported from outside the area just to heckle him!

Just get it done so that we can get on. Attractive refrain. But does returning Mr Johnson to No 10 really Get It Done? We are promised that the EU trade deal will be done by the end of 2020. If not we leave without one. So No Deal is still very much on the table.

What about this deal, this very good deal? It's only the beginning. It needs another deal, that trade deal with Europe. Of course I can get a good trade deal with Europe. They said I'd never be able to renegotiate Mrs May's deal. But I did, didn't I? That's the half-baked bit. Boris' divorce deal is little different to Mrs May's. Whilst it removed the back-stop, so loathed by the idealogues, it replaced it with not one but two Irish borders and little else. What's more lots of Brexiters still hate it. The Brexit Party says Boris' deal still keeps us a vassal state of Europe. Nigel Farage has only withdrawn the Brexit candidates from Tory seats to try to ensure Remain doesn't win. Once Boris is back in Government the Brexiters plan to hold Boris' feet to the fire to get an even harder Brexit. So the internal strife within the Brexit camp will still go on

Take a look at the Institute for Fiscal Studies Director Paul Johnson's comments on the three manifestos at

https://www.ifs.org.uk/election/2019/manifestos

He is highly critical of both the Conservative and Labour manifestos. Some telling excerpts:

"The implication of the Conservative manifesto is that they believe most aspects of public policy are just fine as they are. Little in the way of changes to tax, spending, welfare or anything else. Yes, there are some spending increases for health and education already promised, but essentially nothing new in the manifesto.

Labour, by contrast, want to change everything. Their vision is of a state with a far greater role than anything we have seen for more than 40 years. They would tax and spend more than ever before.................