FOR once, British voters can hardly complain that the parties are all the same. Jeremy Corbyn has taken Labour far to the left with a plan to re-nationalise industries and spend billions on public services, including free university education. Theresa May's Conservatives are focused on executing a hard Brexit. The Liberal Democrats are offering the chance to overturn it altogether, via a second referendum. And the UK Independence Party (UKIP), whose founding purpose was to make Britain leave the European Union and which has rather lost its mojo since the referendum, offers a right-wing sideshow.

So far, so different. But there are some curious overlaps. The Tories have hoovered up UKIP voters by borrowing the party’s promises to slash immigration and to bring back selective “grammar” schools, for which there is great nostalgia, if little evidence of their value. At the same time, Mrs May’s team has leaped onto Labour’s turf, adopting a Labour policy to intervene in energy markets by placing a cap on bills. Labour and the Lib Dems agree on enfranchising 16-year-olds (who might vote for them) and protecting the incomes of pensioners (who generally don’t). And everyone is offering free school meals of some sort: lunch from Labour and the Lib Dems, breakfast from the Tories.