Theresa may

Is an autumn election inevitable?

There’s a joke going around the various warring tribes in the Tory leadership contest. They might not win this time, they tell each other, but not to worry: ‘We’ll all meet again in November.’ The point is that whoever succeeds Theresa May is doomed: the 31 October deadline will pass not with Britain leaving the European Union but with a political crisis and a general election that will be won by Jeremy Corbyn. After that, the Tories will in a few months go through the whole process again — this time to pick a leader of the opposition. ‘We’re using this leadership campaign as a test run for when the

May confirms she’ll stay on as an MP at dull PMQs session

A fair few MPs felt there was no reason to come to today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, given the real action is in the Conservative leadership contest. There were spaces behind Theresa May as she took questions from Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader clearly hadn’t put much effort into preparing for the session, either, offering a bizarre hotchpotch of questions ranging from no-deal Brexit to the government’s record on renewables. Those Tories who had turned up weren’t interested in asking May tricky questions: what was the point, when she has just weeks left as Prime Minister? Instead, they wanted to praise what existed of her record, with Peter Bone praising her

Barometer | 30 May 2019

Tears for fears Theresa May welled up while announcing her resignation in Downing Street. How often do leaders cry? — Lady Thatcher was seen to have tears in her eyes while being driven away from Downing Street for the last time. — Tony Blair nearly broke down in public, but not while in office — while responding to the publication of the Chilcot Report in 2016. — Several US presidents have been witnessed crying — and at a time when it was rare for men to be seen showing emotion in public. Dwight Eisenhower had to cover his face with a napkin to hide his tears in 1952, when recalling

Portrait of the week | 30 May 2019

Home The Brexit party, led by Nigel Farage, received 5,248,533 votes (out of 17,199,701 cast) in the European parliament elections, securing 29 seats — more than twice the seats won by the Conservatives (in fifth place, down from 19 seats in 2014 to four now) and Labour (down from 20 seats to ten) put together. The Liberal Democrats, with 3,367,284 votes, pushed Labour into third place by winning 16 seats (up from one). The Greens won seven seats (up from three). The Yorkshire party secured more votes than the right-wing English Democrats did in the whole country. The Animal Welfare party received more votes than the Women’s Equality party. Ukip

Diary – 30 May 2019

Recording the BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures has brought me to five cities and five styles of questioning. Cardiff had been pungent, positive and intelligent, with a cameo appearance from a belligerent Mark Reckless, who seemed to think that the judges were responsible for the legislative impasse over Brexit. In London, people came armed with prepared speeches about every subject under the sun, followed by the usual ‘Howzat?’. Birmingham was quieter, thoughtful and to the point. Edinburgh was about human rights: plenty of room for confrontation there, but courteous and well-reasoned points from a knowledgeable audience. In Washington the theme was what British politics could learn from the United States

Learn from your enemies

The MPs wishing to replace Theresa May as prime minister have policies — but do they know what their electorate makes of them as human beings? In one of his many essays, Plutarch (fl. ad 100) analysed how your enemies could help you see how you came across to others. He began by stating that all governments had to put up with malice, jealousy and the desire to come out on top. But as early man learned that wild animals, his natural enemies, could in fact be a most agreeable source of food, clothing and medicine, so politicians could learn how to turn their mortal enemies to advantage. Plutarch’s point

Ministers take advantage of power vacuum left by May resignation

Parliament is in recess at the moment, though the difference between a House of Commons Chamber that is sitting and one that isn’t is scarcely noticeable at present, given how few votes MPs are being required to attend. There is a similarly thin distinction between a government led by Theresa May as she insists she’s not going anywhere, and one led by the Theresa May who, last week, finally conceded that she was going. Not much is happening, as per usual. In fact, there will be even less happening as a result of May’s resignation announcement. Today at the Number 10 lobby briefing, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman was asked

The bitter legacy of Theresa May

Theresa May will inevitably be remembered for the Brexit farce, but it may not turn out to be as harmful as some of her other legacies. In her resignation speech she claimed to have led ‘a decent, moderate and patriotic Conservative government on the common ground of British politics’. She said that our country was not ‘just a family of four nations, but a union of people’. We stand together, she said, ‘regardless of ‘our background, the colour of our skin, or who we love’. As prime minister she believed she had fought ‘the burning injustices that still scar our society’ by introducing the race disparity audit and gender pay

In defence of Theresa May

Pretty much all the bad things that people are saying today about Theresa May are true. She’s bad at politics, bad at communicating, bad at dealing with colleagues. She created the conditions that made her job as prime minister handling Brexit almost impossible. Her ‘red lines’ in the autumn of 2016 gave Britain almost no room for manoeuvre and made the sort of cross-party consensus approach to Brexit that is the logical response to a 52:48 referendum result practically impossible. Her 2017 general election cost her the Commons majority that might just have made that hardline approach viable. Her response was quintessentially Theresa May: she compromised on policy but not

Isabel Hardman

Does Theresa May have a domestic legacy?

Theresa May isn’t leaving at a time of her choosing, nor has she been able to focus on the domestic policies she listed in her inaugural speech on the steps of Downing Street. But today, as she announced she was resigning, she still tried to set out what she believed was her legacy in tackling the ‘burning injustices’ in Britain.  It wasn’t a long list, and the achievements on that list were in themselves rather small. She said she had committed more funding to mental health in the NHS long-term plan, which is true. This funding increase was greater than those in NHS England had initially hoped for. But there

James Forsyth

May’s speech is a message to Brexiteers: compromise

One of the aims of Theresa May’s resignation statement was to try and shape the Brexit debate in the Tory party ahead of the forthcoming leadership contest. Her decision to emphasise the need to find consensus in parliament was a clear pop at those such as Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Esther McVey and Andrea Leadsom who have accused her of compromising too much. Though the irony of this is that May didn’t level with her party in 2017 on what her loss of the Tory majority meant for Brexit, and what could be achieved. Equally telling was that May didn’t talk at all about her successor going to Brussels and

Katy Balls

May becomes the latest Conservative prime minister to be brought down by Europe

Theresa May has become the latest Conservative prime minister to be brought down by party divisions on Europe. Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister gave a statement in which she confirmed that she will step down on June 7 to pave the way for a leadership contest to find her successor the following week. She admitted that her Brexit strategy had failed – having tried to pass her deal three times – and said this was something she deeply regretted. However, she suggested that she did not regret her approach – stating that ‘compromise is not a dirty word’. At the end of the speech, May had a

The end of May

This week’s European election was always going to be pointless, at least from a British perspective. It is possible that the elected candidates will never even take up their seats. In one important sense, however, the election campaign has been useful: as a reminder of where public opinion stands on Brexit. A few weeks ago, many believed that Change UK, the party founded by Labour and Conservative dissidents spoiling for a revocation of Article 50, would capture the public mood. Instead, another new political party would appear to have triumphed — a party set up with the sole purpose of expressing anger at the failure of Parliament to effect Britain’s

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 23 May 2019

Almost everyone agrees it is a pity that so few pupils from ‘disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds’ get into Oxford. But no one has successfully proved that it is Oxford’s fault that they do not. (I went to Cambridge, by the way, so I do not have a dog in this fight, except that I imagine the same arguments apply.) One reason that some universities, including Oxford, are classified as ‘world-class’ is that they admit the best. The definition of ‘best’ cannot refer only to native ability, but must also take some account of how well prepared a pupil is. To take an extreme example, it could be the case that an

Robert Peston

The deal on Theresa May’s resignation is done

Put 10th June in your diary. Because that is when the contest to elect a new Tory leader, and therefore a new prime minister, will begin, I am told. Why am I confident of that? Well it is the last possible date for the contest that the shop stewards for Tory MPs, the executive for the 1922 committee, deem acceptable. And – perhaps more importantly – it is the date that the PM has signalled to her closest allies that she can tolerate. How so? Well she does not want the state visit of Donald Trump and the D-Day celebrations of the preceding week to be undermined by the unseemly spectacle

James Forsyth

May’s grave mistake

The European elections were a gift for Britain’s two new political parties, Change UK and the Brexit party. But only the latter seized the opportunity. Change UK have had myriad problems. They have been unable to settle on a name and a logo. Their MPs, exiles from the two main parties, have struggled to understand how minor parties get noticed. But the biggest problem seems to be that their strategy almost assumes Brexit has happened: how else to explain their failure to propose some kind of Remain alliance for this contest? In order to get lift-off, Change UK need Labour to have ‘betrayed’ Remain voters. But the Labour leadership has

The Tories angry about May’s deal are missing the point

The Prime Minister’s speech yesterday, in which she announced a ‘ten-point offer’ to parliament for a ‘new Brexit deal’ has gone down like the proverbial cold cup of sick with many Conservative MPs. The rage isn’t just confined to the 28 Brexiteer hold-outs who voted against the deal on 29 March either – so far, another 40 MPs who previously voted for the deal have indicated they will not vote for the proposed Withdrawal Agreement Bill. Overall, with little sign of movement towards the deal from Labour, it seems the Prime Minister is going backwards. A lot of the anger on the Tory side appears to be directed at May’s pledge to hold a

James Forsyth

Theresa May’s time is almost up

Things are moving fast in Westminster. Theresa May’s position is now more precarious than it has been at any point in her premiership and that’s saying something. Three things have changed. First, it is clear that May’s last roll of the dice hasn’t worked—the Withdrawal Agreement Bill isn’t going to pass second reading. As a consequence of that, Tories who want a deal – as well as those who favour no deal – are now moving towards the belief that May should go. The third thing that has happened is that cabinet ministers, who up to now have thought that a delay to a leadership contest was in their interests,