In keeping with the mood of the last three years or so, the UK again finds itself in a position of unusual, self-inflicted uncertainty as it prepares for the first snap general election since 1974.

Since the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, the country has held a general election in 2015, the EU referendum in 2016, and now, in 2017, another (snap) general election. Throw in the context of having only just emerged from a recession, the Trump administration and the wider lurch to the right in continental Europe, and it is of little surprise that the chief priority for businesses and practitioners alike is greater stability and certainty.