Even before the polling stations open tomorrow morning for this ill conceived general election I will be on my way to the Orkney and Shetland islands. Mrs Theresa May says she decided to call for an election whilst walking in Wales. For the first time since becoming involved in politics in the 1980s I will be missing the big day by sticking to my plans to go on holiday. I will not be repeating May 4th’s local election 16km walking tour of Stansted trying to get out the voters.

Nothing that has happened since Theresa May’s opportunistic Easter holiday bid for more Conservative MPs has convinced me that this election was a good idea for either the country or even for Mrs May herself – as she has discovered. It was supposed to be about Brexit; about giving her a stronger hand in upcoming negotiations. Yet she, her party and the Labour opposition have mostly avoided talking about the likely fallout from our leaving the EU. That’s because both larger parties are scared stiff of facing the truth. The United Kingdom will become a poorer, more isolated, less influential and more unsafe country within two years.

Theresa May thought she was invincible; a latter day Boudicca who would take on and conquer those inferior continentals. Instead she has offended our partners of 40 years and made this country look ridiculous. She has encouraged the British people to bathe themselves in imperial nostalgia; British Empire Mk. 2 is apparently waiting eagerly to cling again to the Mother Country and to buy our goods; the other side of the world will substitute for trading with our near neighbours, so say the dreamers.

Anyway, it’s off to the Ring of Brodgar, a Neolithic stone circle on Orkney Mainland which predates Stonehenge in Wiltshire by some 1,500 years. There may be some comfort in seeing these strong and stable ancient stones, well away from “weak and wobbly”.