The five manifesto pledges Theresa May is likely to drop

It isn’t clear what changed Theresa May’s mind on calling an early general election, something which, as recently as 20 March, she was adamant would not happen. But could the trigger have been nothing to do with Brexit at all? An interesting date is 16 March, when Phillip Hammond reversed the proposed increase in National Insurance on the self-employed which he had announced in his Budget only the week before. The fuss seemed to catch Hammond – and presumably Theresa May, too – by surprise. It seemed as if it simply hadn’t occurred to them that they ought to feel bound by David Cameron’s 2015 manifesto, which promised no rise in the rates of income tax or national insurance throughout the life of the Parliament. The government has already broken one other promise – to freeze the television licence fee – but not too many people noticed that, helped by the modesty of the rise, from £145.50