PM bites the bullet: Why is May calling a snap election now?

It's on. After nine months of denials and deflections, the Prime Minister has bitten the bullet and called a General Election on 8 June.

In dramatic scenes outside Number 10, Theresa May said "with reluctance" she would go to the country to get a firm mandate for delivering Brexit.

It's not easy - there's the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act to get around, but with her poll lead widening by the day Mrs May has calculated that the rewards are too good to miss.

Speculation has been running riot for months, as the Conservatives have widened their poll lead from the low teens to a staggering 21 points in two surveys over the past few days.

Image:Latest YouGov poll suggests Tories as most popular party

Mrs May's party is most trusted on every subject apart from the NHS, and even Labour supporters think she would make a better Prime Minister than Jeremy Corbyn.

Since entering Number 10 in the extraordinary circumstances of last summer, Mrs May has been dogged by the election question and the spectre of Gordon Brown bottling his chance and regretting it.

In fact, as the case for going to the country has only got more compelling, the denials from her team have only been more determined.

On 20 March, her official spokesman said to a question on whether it would happen before 2020: "It isn't going to happen."