When Theresa May first called a snap election for June 8, she was brimming with confidence. She was predicted a whopping majority – after all, why would she trigger a vote if she wasn’t sure of victory?

Now, with less than a week until polling day, the picture is far less rosy for the incumbent. She has been roundly criticised for failing to engage with citizens in a meaningful way on the campaign trail and continues to struggle to recover from the social care policy fiasco that dogged her manifesto launch.

Then came Jeremy Corbyn’s mic drop. Just hours before the BBC was to broadcast its seven-way party debate, the Labour leader agreed to take part. The prime minister, on the other hand, was a no show. This week, we look at the highlights from that debate and ask how serious a mistake it was for May not to take part.

Paul Whiteley, from the University of Essex, is also helping us understand the volatile situation we’re currently seeing in the election polls. Is that forecast about Labour massively narrowing the Conservative lead to be believed?

Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party published its election manifesto this week. Craig McAngus, from the University of Aberdeen, trawled through the document to work out if and when we can expect a second independence referendum, and what that means for Brexit.

But will either of our guests be brave enough to predict the results for general election 2017?

This is the final Election Weekly before polling day but we’ll be back again on June 9 to pore over the results of this snap vote. Join us then to find out who will be at the helm of the good ship United Kingdom as it heads into Brexit … and beyond.

And for some further reading this week, why not join this linguist as he explores the bad language that’s been dropped on the campaign trail by these potty-mouthed politicians.

Music in Election Weekly is Chasin’ It, by Jason Shaw. A big thank you to City University London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios.