The greatest (con?) trick Boris Johnson is trying to pull at this election is to pose as the insurgent candidate.
The Prime Minister is trying to convince voters he has arrived on the scene just in the nick of time to fix all the problems with the country .
This relies on them suffering a collective amnesia over the fact he has been an MP and a member of the Government during the last nine years of Conservative rule.
Johnson wants you to think he bears no responsibility for the bedroom tax, the cuts to public services, the universal credit, lack of affordable homes, the underfunding of the NHS and the shortfall in police numbers, all of which he voted for.
This year zero approach is applied with particular emphasis to Brexit.
To listen to the Prime Minister you would not think he was either responsible for Brexit or in any way culpable for the inability to resolve the issue.
His claim to want to get Brexit done is akin to someone who drunkenly smashes a car into a wall and then claim he is the only person who is sober enough to drive the courtesy vehicle.
This line may work in some quarters.
Many voters for some reason do not associate Johnson with the inability to deliver Brexit or the years of Tory austerity.
The problem is that many other voters are now witnessing the effect of nearly a decade of underfunding and are less willing to accept Johnson is somehow a break with the past.
Labour’s big policy announcement today is the nationalisation of broadband.
In 1983 the Labour manifesto promised a national cable system delivered by a publicly-owned British Telecommunications.
As we know, the party lost the election and its manifesto was condemned as the longest suicide note in history.
This was a unfair epitaph.
In the subsequent years almost all the major policies in that manifesto came to be enacted, many by Tony Blair, including the introduction of a minimum wage, devolution for Scotland and Wales and, by accident rather than design, the nationalisation of the banks.
It could also be argued Labour was ahead of its time when it came to telecommunications.
The roll-out of cable was left to private firms who, with no public service responsibility, provided the service to wealthy areas without a thought for those places which might actually benefit from having it most.
Giving how inadequate most broadband providers are (you only have to look on Twitter to see a near daily stream of complaints about the shoddy service) Labour’s announcement could prove more popular than the Tories realise.
Today's agenda:
Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn are both campaigning in Lancashire.
3pm - Lib Dem economic spokesman Ed Davey speech in Leeds on the economy.
What I am reading:
Jonathan Walker on why the Tories could struggle to make the breakthrough they want
