Tories on the defensive over policy reversals ahead of British election

WHEN British Prime Minister Theresa May called an election on April 18, people saw it as a master stroke. She had won the leadership of the Conservative party and become prime minister nine months earlier. But the majority she had inherited from David Cameron, her predecessor, was small and threatened by hard Brexiteers. A victory in the election would give her a mandate. It was easy to predict that, with the state of the Labour party and the unpopularity of its leader Jeremy Corbyn, she would increase her majority.

In the last few days, that plan has come unstuck. Mrs May has made yet another of her U-turns - th…