WEEK ONE

Week one of the General Election campaign gets under way with Jo Swinson, the soon to be short-lived leader of the Liberal Democrats, claiming that neither Boris Johnson nor Jeremy Corbyn are fit to be Prime Minister. Instead, in a monumental display of hubris, she puts herself forward for the job. Early opinion polls put the Tories ahead of Labour by up to 15 points.

WEEK TWO

In the second week of the campaign Nigel Farage, after seven attempts to win a parliamentary seat, announces he won't make it eight, so as to allow him to campaign nationally for his Brexit Party. Jacob Rees-Mogg, almost omnipresent in the previous weeks, is banished to the outer dark after he says that the Grenfell Tower victims "lacked common sense" by staying in the burning building and he jolly well wouldn't have if it was him. This provokes howls of outrage, not just from victims, but from the man fast becoming a national treasure, Stormzy. Polls suggest a narrowing of the Tory lead.

WEEK THREE

That lead widens again in week three when Farage, in a crucial ploy to aid Johnson, stands down his candidates in Tory-held seats, reducing the risk of the pro-Brexit vote being split. The floods hit north and southern England, Johnson is heckled when he turns up in wellies in one of them, as is Corbyn, by a Church of Scotland minister in Glasgow, who accuses him of being a terrorist sympathiser.

The first sign of Labour's main weapon, the NHS, is deployed as figures for A&E waiting times in England and Wales are revealed as being at an all-time high. Jo Swinson pledges to revoke Brexit on day one if she becomes PM by revoking Article 50. Polls show Tories comfortably 10 points ahead of Labour.

WEEK FOUR

For most of week four the election is kicked off the front pages following the car crash interview with Andrew, Duke of York, on a Newsnight special where he denies having sex with the teenage Virginia Roberts, procured by his paedophile pal Jeffrey Epstein. In an ITV leaders' debate Johnson defends the monarchy as being "beyond reproach". Andrew is withdrawn from public duties and vanishes into a black hole with only Rees-Mogg for company, and latterly Labour's Diane Abbott.

Labour and the LibDems unveil their manifestos, with scorn poured on both, Labour promising widespread nationalisation, the LibDems vowing a £50 billion Remain bonus to fund the NHS, as well as legalising cannabis. The poll lead is stuck at around 14 points.

WEEK FIVE

The Tories unveil their manifesto in week five, including the mantra of "Get Brexit done", with a pledge to recruit 50,000 more nurses, although it transpires that this includes 19,000 existing ones which the PM claims he will dissuade from leaving. A pledge of 40 new hospitals is whittled down to 20 and then six, but no one can now tell where reality begins.

Jeremy Corbyn is hit by a new row over alleged anti-Semitism when the chief rabbi attacks him in the media. In a fierce interview with Andrew Neil (a spot which Johnson will shortly turn down) Corbyn refuses to apologise to Jews and insists he is combating the issue. A major YouGov poll – the most detailed seat-by-seat analysis of the campaign – predicts a Tory majority of 68.

Channel 4, in its leaders' debate on the environment, replaces the two refuseniks, Johnson and Farage, with ice sculptures. Then on Friday, November 29 two people are killed in a knife attack on London Bridge by convicted terrorist Usman Khan.

WEEK SIX

In week six the two main parties blame each other alleged prison and security failings which led to the London Bridge attack. The father of victim Jack Merritt says his son would not want the incident to be used as a "pretext"for draconian sentences and later goes on to call the Prime Minister "a fraud".

The BBC's Andrew Neil issues an unprecedented primetime challenge to Johnson for failing to appear on his show after all the other party leaders agreed. Johnson also dodges a grilling on ITV's Tonight programme. The Tory poll lead hovers around 12 points.

WEEK SEVEN

In the final week of the lengthy campaign Johnson is widely criticised when he refuses to look at a photograph on a reporter's mobile phone of a four-year-old boy lying on a Leeds hospital floor due to the lack of beds. He pockets the journalist's phone, eventually retrieving it to look at the photograph and apologising.

Trying to minimise the damage, Health Secretary Matt Hancock is sent to the hospital and BBC and ITV erroneously report – based on "senior Tory sources" – that one of the minster's aides has been punched by a protester. Video footage later proves this to be a lie. However, Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth causes embarrassment to the party when a recording of a call with a Tory friend is made public in which he (correctly) says Labour will lose the election, later claiming is has made him "look like a plonker".

In a Scottish leaders' debate Nicola Sturgeon comes under fire from Tories, Labour and LibDems over a further independence referendum. Interim Tory leader Jackson Carlaw says Sturgeon has not accepted the outcome of the 2014 independence or the Brexit referendum. “She’s already said that if she didn’t win a second referendum on Brexit, she wouldn’t accept it,” he said.

“Does anybody here believe if she lost a second independence referendum she wouldn’t then start a campaign for a third?" Departing leader Ruth Davidson chips in by saying she'll go skinny-dipping in Loch Ness if the SNP gets more than 50 seats.

An eve-of-poll analysis by YouGov claims that the Tory lead has been cut in half, to less than seven points, increasing the prospect of a hung parliament. Just hours later the TV exit poll, within seconds of voting closing at 10pm on Thursday, predicts a Tory majority of 86.

In the event it comes out at 80, with 48 seats to the SNP – which means Davidson can keep her kit on.