The Committee also agreed to write to Devon County Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee, urging it to refer the matter to the Secretary of State for Health ‘as a matter of urgency’ as it was ‘concerned that lack of an early submission will result in NEW Devon CCG going ahead with its proposals’. This followed a claim from Councillor Mike Allen that staff were already leaving and patients being turned away from Honiton Hospital. The point was echoed in comments by County Councillor Martin Shaw about Seaton Hospital.

The Committee’s resolution was the outcome of two hours’ pressure from Committee members, other councillors and the public on the Chair of the CCG’s Eastern Locality, Dr John Kerr. The resolution was proposed by Chairman, Councillor Roger Giles of Ottery St. Mary, who had interrogated CCG representatives on their proposals. He repeatedly asked ‘how many additional staff will be required’ for the CCG’s new model of care, only to be told ‘what is required’. Other members expressed doubt that enough new staff could be recruited.

Cllr Giles’ proposals followed speeches by Councillor Shaw and EDDC ward councillor Andrew Moulding of Axminster for keeping hospital beds in Seaton. Councillor Moulding pointed out that not only Axminster, but also Axmouth, Uplyme and Rousdon, had been omitted from the CCG’s calculations of the population served by Seaton Hospital.

Much of the discussion at the EDDC meeting reacted to the discussion at Devon’s Health Scrutiny Committee last Monday. Devon councillors had followed the recommendation of their Chairman, Councillor Sara Randall Johnson, to postpone until July a decision on Councillor Claire Wright’s proposal to refer the CCG’s decisions to the Secretary of State for Health. Councillor Shaw, who also addressed the Devon meeting, said afterwards that he was ‘incredibly disappointed and frustrated by the unnecessary and damaging delay’. Sixty protestors, from Honiton, Seaton, Colyton and other parts of Devon, had waved placards outside County Hall and had then watched the Scrutiny Committee, some of them jeering when it was proposed to delay the decision.

Councillor Shaw later expressed his satisfaction with the outcome of the EDDC meeting, which he said ‘put saving the beds back on the agenda’ and pointed the way for Devon County Council’s Scrutiny Committee to follow when it reconvened. He said, ‘I am very pleased at the strong cross-party case made for East Devon hospitals and especially the mounting support for looking again at the CCG’s completely indefensible abandonment of Seaton. Keeping beds in Seaton has had tremendous backing this week, including not only from Councillor Moulding but also Councillor Hall from Axminster, and Mike McAlpine, Chair of the Committee for the Axe Valley Health Hub. Seaton’s Deputy Mayor, Martin Pigott, made an excellent case at County Hall.’

Councillor Shaw said it was very obvious that CCG representatives, Dr Sonja Manton at the Devon meeting and Dr Kerr at EDDC, had refused to answer direct questions about the flawed case for axing Seaton’s beds. ‘I am optimistic that when this comes back to Devon, councillors on the Health Scrutiny Committee will pick up the Seaton issue and we will finally get justice for our communities.’

The conference, held at London’s Royal Victoria Dock, failed to mention any other Westcountry project – not even the £18billion Hinkley Point C power station near Bristol.

Richard Stevens, managing director of Plymouth Citybus and chairman of Devon Chamber of Commerce, said it show the challenge the region faces in the fight to attract Government investment.

Mr Stevens, who attended the event as a director of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership (HotSW LEP), said the event did reveal there were “signs of growth” in the region’s economy.

Adrian Beecroft, the former government adviser and investor in payday lender Wonga, gave £50,000 in the week to 6 June. In 2012, he wrote the Beecroft report for David Cameron, which called for changes to make it easier for businesses to sack employees.

The hedge fund millionaire Reade Griffith also gave the Conservatives £50,000. In 2013, Griffith, who founded Polygon Investment Partners, was ordered to pay more than £800,000 to Kensington and Chelsea council for planning permission to build an “iceberg” basement under his house. Griffith and his wife had applied for permission to build a swimming pool and media area in a two-storey basement. The money was supposed to contribute to affordable housing elsewhere in the borough.

The billionaire hedge fund manager Sir Michael Hintze has given £250,000, making him the joint top individual donor in this particular week. Before the last general election, he gave the party their single biggest donation in six years – £1.5m.

Ehud Sheleg, an Israeli-born businessman now based in the West Midlands, has also given £250,000. He is the director of the Halcyon Gallery on Bond Street, which recently exhibited a collection of Bob Dylan’s artworks. Arne Groes, an executive at the London headquarters of French bank BNP Paribas, has given £100,000, as has Keith Bradshaw, a Birmingham-based businessman.

Labour has received £1.046m in the final full week of the campaign. Unite, the union, is the biggest donor, with gifts of £528,000, followed by the Communication Workers’ Union, with just over £320,000.

The Lib Dems received just over £103,000, most of which came from public funds. The Green Party received £10,000, around half the amount received by the Women’s Equality Party. Ukip received no donation of more than £7,500.

The Conservatives raised more than 10 times as much as Labour two weeks ago, partly thanks to a donation of over £1m from the theatre producer behind The Book of Mormon and The Phantom of the Opera. John Gore, whose company has produced a string of hit musicals, gave £1.05m as part of the £3.77m received by the Conservatives in the third week of the election campaign. In the same period, Labour received only £331,499.

Labour has concentrated on raising small sums from its members, most of which will not be included in these figures, sources said.

To have suggested that the hunting with dogs legislation might be subject to a free vote in the House of Commons was, whether you are pro hunting or against, a move of quite stunning stupidity. Why alienate that 84 per cent of the electorate opposed to fox-hunting (Ipsos-Mori, 2016), especially when some of them (including me) are quite passionately anti-hunting and might be tempted to change their vote? And when you already have the pro-fox-hunting votes in your grasp? It makes no electoral sense.

Still more remarkable was the decision to force demented people to sell their own houses, if they can remember where they are, to pay for their own care. Followed very shortly by an embarrassing U-turn.

This was passed off by the Tories as an example of pristine honesty, of nettles being grasped in an admirably transparent manner. But, like much of the current Tory campaign, it smacked to me of two things — complacency and arrogance. It suggested yet again that Theresa May called this election convinced that almost nothing she could do or say would prevent the inevitable landslide.

I think she was horribly wrong about that. I just pray to the Lord Jesus Christ that she was not so horribly wrong that we wake up on 9 June to find that Diane Abbott is the Home Secretary, Emily Thornberry in charge of Trident, all part of a Labour-Lib Dem-Tartan Munchkin Alliance, aided by that sinister reptilian Green woman, Lucas, and Natalie Wood or whatever her name is from Wales, look you.

That scenario is still unlikely, but I will bet it is not half so unlikely as many of you, or Theresa May, believed when the election was called. Back then the headlines were talking of a Labour and Ukip wipeout and a landslide for the Tories.

I never remotely bought that notion, no matter what the polls said. I have been banging on for ages about how the Labour vote, especially in the north, is a lot ‘stickier’ than the pollsters think. My guess was that May would win a majority of 30 or so, but that was before Conservative Central Office took out its hardy shotgun and began blowing off both of its feet. I may have to revise that figure downwards. Either way, and those gaffes excluded, here’s why I think the Tory lead in the polls has been halved — yes, halved — despite the fact that the Labour party is led by Chauncey Gardiner out of Hal Ashby’s wonderful satire Being There.

First, the election was not wanted and is deeply resented beyond the Westminster bubble. The only people who actually enjoy elections are journos and the politically active: that leaves 97 per cent of the population who are somewhat averse, especially after a bruising referendum last year. May is resented for having foisted the election upon us, and people may be inclined to punish her for it, either by staying at home or voting against. The most salient comment of this election may have been made on the day it was called, by Brenda of Bristol: ‘Oh no, what’s she done that for?’ People suspect that their lives are being disrupted for Theresa May’s political and personal gain. And they’re not wrong, are they?

Second. Jeremy Corbyn is not notably less popular in the Midlands and north of the country than Ed Miliband was. And he has had a good election so far. The Labour vote remains buoyant and is growing. Don’t forget that the populist revolution we have seen here and in the US and in Europe does not come exclusively from the right. Corbyn presents an anti-establishment populist left-wing agenda, much as did Syriza and Five Star (and the SNP, come to that) and he offers it to an electorate which has a certain appetite for such radicalism. If he changed his tune on immigration he could conceivably win.

Third. Theresa May has the personal warmth, wit, oratorical ability and attractiveness of an Indesit fridge-freezer which has been faultily connected by a man called Trevor for five quid, cash in hand, and which is now full of decomposing Findus Crispy Pancakes. There is no vision, there is no chutzpah. Just the bland repetition of meaningless phrases. Corbyn is a far better campaigner.

Fourth. Yes, the Labour front bench has the collective IQ of a fairly small bowl of krill. But the Conservative front bench is pretty thinnish, too, isn’t it? Would you book Amber Rudd or Philip Hammond to deliver a rousing speech at your company’s annual shindig? I’d rather listen to a tape of Greylag geese squabbling over mating rights.

Fifth. The Ukip vote will migrate to the Tories en masse — but in the south, where they don’t need it. Far less so in the north and Midlands, where they do need it. There, many will remain with Ukip, especially if Paul Nuttall ramps up the anti-Islam rhetoric in the wake of the Manchester atrocity. Of the rest, a fair few will go back to the habitual berth of the Labour party.

Sixth. I had not expected the Lib Dem vote to disappear. But given that it does seem to be disappearing, it won’t turn up in the pockets of Conservative candidates. Almost anyone but — and most likely Labour.