The fact that the Prime Minister today is trying to get the Conservative campaign focused back on Europe is revealing. When Theresa May announced she was calling an election, the pretext she gave was that Brexit was the single most important issue facing the country — and that she needed a stronger mandate to negotiate on Britain’s behalf. She was right about the importance of the issue, although we suspect the allure of a potential landslide was the real reason for the election.

What is certain is that the way we conduct these European negotiations will determine our relations with our near neighbours and allies for decades. Here we could not have got off to a worse start. High-handed British arrogance and low leaks from the Europeans have poisoned the dialogue before it’s even started. Anyone who cares about Britain’s role in the world will have been dismayed this weekend to see the German Chancellor lump Brexit Britain with Trump’s America, and claim that neither are reliable partners any more. Whether it was sensible for Angela Merkel to reveal her fears about the western alliance in public in a beer tent in Munich is doubtful; what counts is that she and other Europeans now think that way.

Meanwhile, at home we face profound choices about everything from who we let into the country to how we sustain support for the free market and the free trade it depends on. Yet hardly any of this has featured in what was supposed to be the Brexit election. Labour knows the public shudders at the thought of Jeremy Corbyn representing the country abroad, so what passes for its campaign strategy has been a focus on softer domestic issues, from childcare to haircuts. The Conservative campaign has meandered from an abortive attempt to launch a personality cult around Mrs May to the self-inflicted wound of the most disastrous manifesto in recent history and, after the atrocity in Manchester, shrill attacks on Mr Corbyn’s appeasement of terrorism.

Their campaign seems to have gone out of its way to avoid the very issue — Brexit — that was supposed to be the very reason we were having an election in the first place. The result can be summed up by what we imagine to be the conversation around the breakfast table in Downing Street: “Honey, I shrunk the poll lead.”

It’s not too late to get back to the issues that count. Let’s be told how immigration is going to be reduced — not the blank responses this paper got from Cabinet ministers today. Let’s hear how we are going to try to keep tariff-free access to our largest export markets. Let’s debate how we are going to change the global view that thinks Britain is turning its back on the world. We have had no answers from Labour or the Conservatives. In other words, treat the public like grown ups, and allow them a chance to give the mandate the government claims to seek.

The princes’ fine work

The unveiling today by Prince Harry of the injured military personnel who will form the UK team for his latest Invictus Games is a reminder of the efforts that both he and his brother William are making to improve the nation’s mental health. In Harry’s case, his decision to create the Paralympic-style contest is giving new motivation to veterans while providing an valuable illustration to the wider population of how participation in sport can improve mental health.

At the same time, Prince William talks movingly today in an interview for GQ magazine about the challenges he faced coping with the death, almost 20 years ago, of his mother Princess Diana. His frank words follow his brother’s candid disclosure about the way in which he sought counselling to overcome his own anguish. The ambition of both princes is to break the stigma surrounding mental health. We hope their fine work continues.