Here is the thing. If Theresa May can change her mind so spectacularly within months about the merits and demerits of an early general election, then we must give the people the opportunity to change their minds once the terms of Brexit are concluded. Offer a second referendum and let the people decide.
Both the recent reporting and the latest polling data suggests that Theresa May has called an election because she wants to win a large majority - possibly three figures. All the polling currently points to a big win for the Conservatives. They are more than 20 points ahead of Labour and well into the 40% range it is assumed is needed for victory. This has been the case for some time.
UKIP have enjoyed moderate success in the West Midlands if you take into account finishing 3rd in almost all of the region's parliamentary constituencies in the 2015 General Election and making steady gains in last year's local elections.
Try to remember the name Mark Reckless. Not for any profound political reason, but because in years to come those words will be the answer to the pub quiz question: "Who was the second Tory to defect to Ukip in 2014?" That's the only reason to remember him - the only reason to even keep those two words in your brain. After all, why else take the time to remember just another politician willing to go back on their principles so they can stay in public office?
To say UKIP are having an existential crisis since the UK voted for Brexit would be an understatement. It's easy to infer from this that they were merely a one-man band and ever since Nigel Farage actually resigned as leader of the party they were doomed to failure, but there is more to it than that.
I'm looking forward to seeing what Carswell does next, because surely now everything he stands for has been destroyed. He can no longer play the 'I'm a great democrat' card - because he's not. He can no longer argue that politics is a cartel dominated by people who don't want to give up power - because he is one of them. He can no longer lambast his fellow politicians for breaking promises made to voters - because he has done the same.
British, European and American politicians will have to manage groups who see the world in very different ways, protect their jobs and enable them to live their lives in a rapidly changing, digital economy where success means less barriers to travel and trade. Trump and Brexit won their elections on the back of declarations to protect those who see their future within a less open state, that they can recreate the world before globalisation and that international free trade has damaged their lives. It's a gamble which is unlikely pay off.
Plenty has been written about the 'left-behind' voters who have now created Brexit and Trump and are threatening to make a fascist President of France. But they have mostly been regarded - and possibly accurately - as something of a throwback, Luddites who provide little more than a general talking point and a useful demos for a small group of right-wing commentators with populist pretensions. There have been very few attempts to analyse the actual content of left-behindedness.
Until the party are able to present to the electorate a coherent, attractive and gaffe-free plan, they are in serious danger of returning to the political wilderness. The current landscape is being shaped almost solely by an ascendant Conservative Party, leaving Nuttall with a lot of work to do if he is to stop his party from descending into irrelevance.
It will be fascinating to see how this by-election plays out, especially in light of a UKIP campaign that seems to be struggling to shake off substantive allegations of its leader and candidate, Paul Nuttall, lying about Hillsborough. It has been a truly dirty campaign of nastiness, desperation and anger on both sides, and as with any by-election the level of turnout will be crucial to the result.
In a year dominated by the UK's vote to leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump, there were mixed fortunes for Britain's far right. For them it was a year of further marginalisation, convictions and bans punctuated only by extreme acts of violence - such as the horrific murder of Jo Cox.
By injecting honesty and integrity into our politics we may have a chance of fighting back against the 'fake news', 'post-truth' normalisation that is taking place. Needless to say politics is a dark art, and we'll never have a political order based on complete honesty, however all I'm really talking about here is the need to take responsibility for their own actions.
If there is any reason at all to put an immediate halt to Brexit, it is President Trump's first week in office, culminating in Prime Minister Theresa May's desperate visit to be the first leader to swear fealty - and then her inexcusable refusal to condemn the so-called Muslim Ban.
When I held up a sign behind Nigel Farage on Wednesday it, to my shock, went viral. Less shocking was the torrent of abuse and hate that followed online. Quite a few, more understandably, asked me what Nigel Farage had done to deserve having a crudely, off the cuff note held up behind his head. For those people, here's a handy list of just five fibs Nigel Farage told that day and over the past decade.
Just a few minutes after the PM's speech yesterday, a triumphant Nigel Farage rightly congratulated himself for his effective takeover of the UK Government. Indeed Theresa May's address, aimed at appeasing the right wing tabloids, sounded like a UKIP conference speech. There can be no doubt it would have received a resounding and prolonged standing ovation there.
We are still in the calm before the storm. In Britain and the United States, the new right has seized power but it has not yet had to use it. We are on the brink of a new era defined by values and priorities at odds with those that have held sway in the West for decades, but we can only guess at what happens next.