Election 2018? May government has backed itself into a corner again and again, only to slip away to fight another day

Will there be an election this year? That's the big question on the tongues of everyone interested in British politics right now.

Theresa May's big effort to bring together her party - to bring it into line with the 'Brexit mandate' she claimed and coopted for herself - with a plan for Brexit backfired spectacularly. There have been big profile resignations, rumour of a leadership challenge and a divisions are now as wide as they have ever been.

For their part, Labour are raring to go. They're ahead in the polls and full of the belief that their poll lead will only be the starting position for another election campaign that will gather steam and see another surge.

However. Theresa May has so far managed to steer her government through one crisis after another - into and out of one corner after another - and cling to power. Even as each time pundits say a leadership challenge is brewing, and perhaps an election is not far away.

In fact, this government has lasted far longer than expected and predicted, considering it's disastrous election campaign, it's weakness, it's divisions, it's lack of a majority. But clinging on in that state surely cannot last.

There have been other minority governments that have limped along like this. John Major's minority government, as Tory seats were whittled away in by-elections and defections, lasted just four months. With a series of pacts with other parties, the Callaghan minority government kept going for two years, but lost heavily when it finally reached an election.

Theresa May again faces divisions that seem insurmountable - her Brexit white paper having exposed, rather than resealed, the cracks. Tory Brexiters are unhappy and so are the Tory Remainers, with one wing preparing to challenge May's leadership and the other starting to call for a second referendum on the final Brexit deal.

But the May govt still has, for the moment, it's deal with the DUP intact. And she has another thing on her side. For a year, May has survived by defusing crises with dsitractions, often simply waiting it out until everyone gets bored and moves on, and with a sheer stubborn refusal to accept the reality of her government's weak position.

Yet it is that weak position itself that may very well be what helps her fend off the threat of an election. The Tories see the polls and know that Labour is so close to taking power - and the one thing the Tories can unite on is not letting Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell into No.10 and No.11 Downing Street. And their internal squabbles are making their dread outcome a realistic prospect.

What weighs in favour of the Tories is that there can be a change of Prime Minister, even of the government, without an election. It is a fact that the Tories will lean upon heavily in the coming months, if a leadership challenge emerges. They will be eager let everyone know that a new leader is to ensure continuity, rather than to change direction, to minimise claims that an election must surely follow.

The reality facing progressives is that, even as weak as the May government is, it's fate is still in the hands of the Conservatives themselves. With a defiant vote by Tory rebels to force an election unlikely, it will take a sustained swell of public pressure to force the Tories into a premature election.

Corbyn and McDonnell are victims of their own success. They have gotten Labour so close, and leading in the polls, that whatever else the government does, it knows it can't risk an election. The weakened government can do nothing but limp on.