Hello, my name is David Runseman and this is Talking Politics.

And here we are again. We started this podcast a couple of years ago because we wanted to talk about the general election,

which we used to think happened once every five years.

On that series, when we used to be called election then, we had Robert Tumbs who came on to talk about

Englishness and what English nationalism might mean in the context of a general election.

And I'm delighted that Robert is back with us today.

We asked him on last week because we were going to talk about France and we still are going to talk about France

because there's lots going on in the world. There isn't just British politics and we always have to remember that.

So we come on to talk about the first round of the French presidential election in a few minutes because it is still the most interesting election currently going on anywhere in the world at the moment.

But we're going to say a little bit first about Theresa May's decision yesterday to plunge us back into British election fever.

And we've got, I should say, Helen Thompson and Chris Brickett and with us.

As someone pointed out to me last night, I need to say already, I mean we've barely even got into the business of predicting what might happen that I'm wrong

because I've been wrong for two years, including on this podcast, by saying that I thought the Fixed Turn Parliament Act was very important piece of legislation

that changed the dynamics of British politics. And it's one of those things that I can now see that was clearly stupid.

But I can only see why it was stupid since Mrs. May's decision yesterday in that it was very useful for a Prime Minister who didn't want to call an election

because then you have a reason not to call an election and it's not just politicking. You can say it's the law.

But what I didn't realize is if a Prime Minister decides to call an election, it seems like, I mean I'm going to check here with Helen and Chris if I'm wrong about this,

but it seems like there's nothing the opposition can do. We're recording Wednesday morning.

There's going to be a vote later today in the comments to confirm that there will be an election on June 8th.

And we assume that that will definitely pass the two-thirds majority need it.

Is there anything once a Prime Minister calls out the opposition and says, I want to have an election, are you up for it or not?

Is there anything any opposition could do to say no?

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